Last week, you might have seen that Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AQST) released its first-quarter result to the market. The early response was not positive, with shares down 5.9% to US$3.09 in the past week. It was a pretty bad result overall; while revenues were in line with expectations at US$12m, statutory losses exploded to US$0.17 per share. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. So we gathered the latest post-earnings forecasts to see what estimates suggest is in store for next year.

Following the recent earnings report, the consensus from seven analysts covering Aquestive Therapeutics is for revenues of US$49.8m in 2024. This implies a small 3.4% decline in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Per-share losses are predicted to creep up to US$0.34. Before this earnings announcement, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$50.1m and losses of US$0.37 per share in 2024. It looks like there's been a modest increase in sentiment in the recent updates, with the analysts becoming a bit more optimistic in their predictions for losses per share, even though the revenue numbers were unchanged.

The average price target held steady at US$8.88, seeming to indicate that business is performing in line with expectations. 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 Aquestive Therapeutics, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$13.00 and the most bearish at US$7.00 per share. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.

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. One more thing stood out to us about these estimates, and it's the idea that Aquestive Therapeutics' decline is expected to accelerate, with revenues forecast to fall at an annualised rate of 4.5% to the end of 2024. This tops off a historical decline of 2.4% a year over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 9.3% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while it does have declining revenues, the analysts also expect Aquestive Therapeutics to suffer worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most obvious conclusion is that the analysts made no changes to their forecasts for a loss next year. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that Aquestive Therapeutics' revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have estimates - from multiple Aquestive Therapeutics analysts - going out to 2026, and you can see them free on our platform here.

You still need to take note of risks, for example - Aquestive Therapeutics has 3 warning signs (and 2 which shouldn't be ignored) we think you should know about.

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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.