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Shareholders in Ecovyst Inc. (NYSE:ECVT) had a terrible week, as shares crashed 30% to US$6.69 in the week since its latest quarterly results. It looks like a pretty bad result, all things considered. Although revenues of US$183m were in line with analyst predictions, statutory earnings fell badly short, missing estimates by 39% to hit US$0.07 per share. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Ecovyst after the latest results.
View our latest analysis for Ecovyst
After the latest results, the six analysts covering Ecovyst are now predicting revenues of US$728.4m in 2024. If met, this would reflect a satisfactory 5.6% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to soar 37% to US$0.66. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$735.6m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.79 in 2024. The analysts seem to have become more bearish following the latest results. While there were no changes to revenue forecasts, there was a substantial drop in EPS estimates.
It might be a surprise to learn that the consensus price target fell 7.9% to US$12.50, with the analysts clearly linking lower forecast earnings to the performance of the stock price. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic Ecovyst analyst has a price target of US$18.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$9.50. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.
Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. One thing stands out from these estimates, which is that Ecovyst is forecast to grow faster in the future than it has in the past, with revenues expected to display 12% annualised growth until the end of 2024. If achieved, this would be a much better result than the 8.4% annual decline over the past five years. Compare this against analyst estimates for the broader industry, which suggest that (in aggregate) industry revenues are expected to grow 4.8% annually. So it looks like Ecovyst is expected to grow faster than its competitors, at least for a while.