News Flash: Analysts Just Made A Sizeable Upgrade To Their Merus N.V. (NASDAQ:MRUS) Forecasts

Merus N.V. (NASDAQ:MRUS) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's statutory forecasts. The consensus estimated revenue numbers rose, with their view now clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects. Merus has also found favour with investors, with the stock up an impressive 15% to US$19.85 over the past week. We'll be curious to see if these new estimates convince the market to lift the stock price higher still.

After this upgrade, Merus' six analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$47m in 2021. This would be a huge 48% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are expected to be contained, narrowing 15% from last year to US$2.17. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$38m and US$2.15 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, withthe analysts noticeably increasing their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to hold steady.

See our latest analysis for Merus

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. It's clear from the latest estimates that Merus' rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 118% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2021 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 27% p.a. over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 10% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Merus to grow faster than the wider 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 Merus' prospects. They also upgraded their revenue estimates for this year, and sales are expected to grow faster than the wider market. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to this year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Merus.

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 Merus going out to 2023, 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. 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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