It's been a good week for Evergy, Inc. (NYSE:EVRG) shareholders, because the company has just released its latest quarterly results, and the shares gained 2.3% to US$66.72. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$1.2b were what the analysts expected, Evergy surprised by delivering a (statutory) profit of US$0.81 per share, an impressive 21% above what was forecast. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.

Check out our latest analysis for Evergy

Following the recent earnings report, the consensus from six analysts covering Evergy is for revenues of US$5.03b in 2021, implying a perceptible 7.9% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to rise 2.2% to US$3.56. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$5.10b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.59 in 2021. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates.

It will come as no surprise then, to learn that the consensus price target is largely unchanged at US$69.11. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on Evergy, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$74.00 and the most bearish at US$60.00 per share. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggeststhe analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Evergy's past performance and to peers in the same industry. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 15% by the end of 2021. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 19% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 3.8% annually for the foreseeable future. It's pretty clear that Evergy's revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.