Looking at Windstream Holdings Inc’s (NASDAQ:WIN) earnings update in December 2017, analysts seem highly optimistic, with profits predicted to ramp up by an impressive 80.39% next year, compared with the historical 5-year average growth rate of -58.11%. Currently with earnings of -US$2.12B, we can expect this to reach -US$3.82B by 2019. In this article, I’ve outline a few earnings growth rates to give you a sense of the market sentiment for Windstream Holdings in the longer term. For those keen to understand more about other aspects of the company, you can research its fundamentals here. View our latest analysis for Windstream Holdings

How will Windstream Holdings perform in the near future?

The longer term view from the 12 analysts covering WIN is one of positive sentiment. Broker analysts tend to forecast up to three years ahead due to a lack of clarity around the business trajectory beyond this. I’ve plotted out each year’s earnings expectations and inserted a line of best fit to calculate an annual growth rate from the slope in order to understand the overall trajectory of WIN’s earnings growth over these next few years.

By 2021, WIN’s earnings should reach -US$3.89B, from current levels of -US$2.12B, resulting in an annual growth rate of 53.58%. EPS reaches $-1.92 in the final year of forecast compared to the current $-12.52 EPS today. The main reason for growth is a result of reduction in costs rather than purely top-line expansion as earnings is increasing at a faster rate. In 2021, WIN’s profit margin will have expanded from -36.19% to -70.58%.

Next Steps:

Future outlook is only one aspect when you’re building an investment case for a stock. For Windstream Holdings, there are three essential factors you should further research:

1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.

2. Valuation: What is Windstream Holdings worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Windstream Holdings is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Windstream Holdings? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.