News Flash: Analysts Just Made A Captivating Upgrade To Their Valneva SE (EPA:VLA) Forecasts

Valneva SE (EPA:VLA) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to next year's forecasts. Consensus estimates suggest investors could expect greatly increased statutory revenues and earnings per share, with the analysts modelling a real improvement in business performance.

After the upgrade, the nine analysts covering Valneva are now predicting revenues of €239m in 2024. If met, this would reflect an okay 7.1% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are expected to turn into profits real soon, with the analysts forecasting €0.018 in per-share earnings. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of €217m and €0.13 per share in losses. It looks like there's been a definite improvement in business conditions, with a revenue upgrade supposed to lead to profitability sooner than previously forecast.

View our latest analysis for Valneva

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Valneva's past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that Valneva's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 5.6% annualised growth rate until the end of 2024 being well below the historical 31% p.a. growth over the last five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 32% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while revenue growth is expected to slow down, the wider industry is also expected to grow faster than Valneva.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that there is now an expectation for Valneva to become profitable next year, compared to previous expectations of a loss. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. The clear improvement in sentiment should be enough to get most shareholders feeling more optimistic about Valneva's future.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have estimates - from multiple Valneva analysts - going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks 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.