Analysts Just Published A Bright New Outlook For Old Republic International Corporation's (NYSE:ORI)

Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. Consensus estimates suggest investors could expect greatly increased statutory revenues and earnings per share, with analysts modelling a real improvement in business performance.

Following the upgrade, the consensus from twin analysts covering Old Republic International is for revenues of US$8.4b in 2021, implying a small 6.0% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are supposed to dive 26% to US$3.92 in the same period. Prior to this update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$7.6b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.34 in 2021. So we can see there's been a pretty clear increase in analyst sentiment in recent times, with both revenues and earnings per share receiving a decent lift in the latest estimates.

View our latest analysis for Old Republic International

Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 12% by the end of 2021. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 6.7% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 3.6% annually for the foreseeable future. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Old Republic International is expected to lag the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts upgraded their earnings per share estimates for this year, expecting improving business conditions. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. More bullish expectations could be a signal for investors to take a closer look at Old Republic International.

Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. At least one analyst has provided forecasts out to 2023, which can be seen for 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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