Yahoo Finance Analysts Just Shipped A Captivating Upgrade To Their Castle Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSTL) Estimates
Castle Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSTL) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects. The market may be pricing in some blue sky too, with the share price gaining 11% to US$33.94 in the last 7 days. It will be interesting to see if today's upgrade is enough to propel the stock even higher.
Following the upgrade, the current consensus from Castle Biosciences' seven analysts is for revenues of US$132m in 2022 which - if met - would reflect a sizeable 20% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Per-share losses are expected to explode, reaching US$2.91 per share. Yet before this consensus update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$120m and losses of US$3.33 per share in 2022. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.
Check out our latest analysis for Castle Biosciences
There was no major change to the consensus price target of US$50.57, perhaps suggesting that the analysts remain concerned about ongoing losses despite the improved earnings and revenue outlook. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Castle Biosciences, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$65.00 and the most bearish at US$40.00 per share. These price targets show that analysts do have some differing views on the business, but the estimates do not vary enough to suggest to us that some are betting on wild success or utter failure.
Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. The analysts are definitely expecting Castle Biosciences' growth to accelerate, with the forecast 44% annualised growth to the end of 2022 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 31% per annum over the past three years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 7.1% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Castle Biosciences is expected to grow much faster than its industry.
The Bottom Line
The most important thing here is that analysts reduced their loss per share estimates for this year, reflecting increased optimism around Castle Biosciences' prospects. They also upgraded their revenue estimates for this year, and sales are expected to grow faster than the wider market. Some investors might be disappointed to see that the price target is unchanged, but we feel that improving fundamentals are usually a positive - assuming these forecasts are met! So Castle Biosciences could be a good candidate for more research.
Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Castle Biosciences going out to 2024, and you can see them free on our platform here..
Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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