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There's been a notable change in appetite for Agenus Inc. (NASDAQ:AGEN) shares in the week since its yearly report, with the stock down 19% to US$0.54. Revenues of US$156m crushed expectations, although expenses increased commensurately, with statutory losses hitting US$0.69 per share, -10% above what the analysts expected. The analysts typically update their forecasts at each earnings report, and we can judge from their estimates whether their view of the company has changed or if there are any new concerns to be aware of. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
See our latest analysis for Agenus
Following the latest results, Agenus' five analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$279.1m in 2024. This would be a sizeable 79% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 31% to US$0.41. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$214.2m and losses of US$0.37 per share in 2024. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts significantly increasing their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to increase. It looks like the top line growth will not be achieved without incremental costs.
It will come as no surprise that expanding losses caused the consensus price target to fall 18% to US$5.50with the analysts implicitly ranking ongoing losses as a greater concern than growing revenues. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Agenus at US$8.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$3.00. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.
Taking a look at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can understand these forecasts is to see how they compare to both past performance and industry growth estimates. It's clear from the latest estimates that Agenus' rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 79% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2024 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 9.9% p.a. over the past five years. Compare this with other companies in the same industry, which are forecast to grow their revenue 18% annually. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Agenus to grow faster than the wider industry.