How Do Analysts See Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE:CAH) Performing In The Next Couple Of Years?

In August 2019, Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE:CAH) released its latest earnings announcement, which signalled that the business gained from a major tailwind, more than doubling its earnings from the prior year. Below is my commentary, albeit very simple and high-level, on how market analysts view Cardinal Health's earnings growth trajectory over the next few years and whether the future looks even brighter than the past. Note that I will be looking at net income excluding extraordinary items to get a better understanding of the underlying drivers of earnings.

View our latest analysis for Cardinal Health

Market analysts' consensus outlook for this coming year seems pessimistic, with earnings declining by a double-digit -30%. In the next couple of years, earnings should continue to be below today's level, with a decline of -26% in 2021, eventually reaching US$1.0b in 2022.

Although it’s informative understanding the rate of growth each year relative to today’s value, it may be more beneficial to evaluate the rate at which the company is rising or falling on average every year. The pro of this technique is that it removes the impact of near term flucuations and accounts for the overarching direction of Cardinal Health's earnings trajectory over time, which may be more relevant for long term investors. To compute this rate, I've appended a line of best fit through analyst consensus of forecasted earnings. The slope of this line is the rate of earnings growth, which in this case is 2.5%. This means, we can expect Cardinal Health will grow its earnings by 2.5% every year for the next few years.

Next Steps:

For Cardinal Health, I've put together three essential factors you should look at:

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

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.