Party Time: Brokers Just Made Major Increases To Their OraSure Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSUR) Earnings Forecasts

OraSure Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSUR) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's statutory forecasts. The analysts greatly increased their revenue estimates, suggesting a stark improvement in business fundamentals. The market may be pricing in some blue sky too, with the share price gaining 16% to US$5.80 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 consensus from six analysts covering OraSure Technologies is for revenues of US$342m in 2023, implying a chunky 12% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. The losses are expected to disappear over the next year or so, with forecasts for a profit of US$0.45 per share this year. Yet before this consensus update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$236m and losses of US$0.38 per share in 2023. 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.

Check out our latest analysis for OraSure Technologies

With these upgrades, we're not surprised to see that the analysts have lifted their price target 8.0% to US$5.88 per share. 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 OraSure Technologies, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$7.00 and the most bearish at US$5.50 per share. Even so, with a relatively close grouping of estimates, it looks like the analysts are quite confident in their valuations, suggesting OraSure Technologies is an easy business to forecast or the underlying assumptions are obvious.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the OraSure Technologies' past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with a forecast 12% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2023. That is a notable change from historical growth of 15% over the last five years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 7.6% per year. It's pretty clear that OraSure Technologies' revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that the consensus now expects OraSure Technologies to become profitable this year. Pleasantly, analysts also upgraded their revenue estimates, and their forecasts suggest the business is expected to grow slower than the wider market. With a serious upgrade to expectations and a rising price target, it might be time to take another look at OraSure Technologies.

Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have estimates - from multiple OraSure Technologies analysts - going out to 2025, 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.