Need To Know: Analysts Are Much More Bullish On Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE:ED) Revenues

Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE:ED) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The analysts have sharply increased their revenue numbers, with a view that Consolidated Edison will make substantially more sales than they'd previously expected.

Following the upgrade, the most recent consensus for Consolidated Edison from its ten analysts is for revenues of US$14b in 2021 which, if met, would be a notable 12% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Before the latest update, the analysts were foreseeing US$13b of revenue in 2021. It looks like there's been a clear increase in optimism around Consolidated Edison, given the solid increase in revenue forecasts.

View our latest analysis for Consolidated Edison

We'd point out that there was no major changes to their price target of US$74.63, suggesting the latest estimates were not enough to shift their view on the value of the business. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. The most optimistic Consolidated Edison analyst has a price target of US$82.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$67.00. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggests the analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.

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. The analysts are definitely expecting Consolidated Edison's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 16% annualised growth to the end of 2021 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 0.8% per annum 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 3.2% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Consolidated Edison is expected to grow much faster than its industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts lifted their revenue estimates for this year. They're also forecasting more rapid revenue growth than the wider market. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to this year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Consolidated Edison.

Analysts are clearly in love with Consolidated Edison at the moment, but before diving in - you should be aware that we've identified some warning flags with the business, such as dilutive stock issuance over the past year. You can learn more, and discover the 3 other concerns we've identified, for 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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