What Does The Future Hold For Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR)? These Analysts Have Been Cutting Their Estimates

Today is shaping up negative for Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a substantial negative revision to this year's forecasts. There was a fairly draconian cut to their revenue estimates, perhaps an implicit admission that previous forecasts were much too optimistic. The stock price has risen 9.3% to US$9.44 over the past week. We'd be curious to see if the downgrade is enough to reverse investor sentiment on the business.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the seven analysts covering Voyager Therapeutics, is for revenues of US$33m in 2024, which would reflect a substantial 87% reduction in Voyager Therapeutics' sales over the past 12 months. After this downgrade, the company is anticipated to report a loss of US$1.98 in 2024, a sharp decline from a profit over the last year. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$45m and US$1.84 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a serious cut to their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to increase.

See our latest analysis for Voyager Therapeutics

One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with a forecast 87% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2024. That is a notable change from historical growth of 20% 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 18% per year. It's pretty clear that Voyager Therapeutics' revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts increased their loss per share estimates for this year. Regrettably, they also downgraded their revenue estimates, and the latest forecasts imply the business will grow sales slower than the wider market. Often, one downgrade can set off a daisy-chain of cuts, especially if an industry is in decline. So we wouldn't be surprised if the market became a lot more cautious on Voyager Therapeutics after today.

After a downgrade like this, it's pretty clear that previous forecasts were too optimistic. What's more, we've spotted several possible issues with Voyager Therapeutics' business, like dilutive stock issuance over the past year. For more information, you can click here to discover this and the 3 other flags we've identified.

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

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