Last week saw the newest quarterly earnings release from Lindsay Corporation (NYSE:LNN), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. It looks like a credible result overall - although revenues of US$161m were what the analysts expected, Lindsay surprised by delivering a (statutory) profit of US$1.53 per share, an impressive 27% above what was forecast. 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 collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.

Following the latest results, Lindsay's four analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$654.1m in 2027. This would be a satisfactory 4.2% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to ascend 16% to US$6.32. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$656.6m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$6.34 in 2027. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates.

With the analysts reconfirming their revenue and earnings forecasts, it's surprising to see that the price target rose 9.3% to US$136. It looks as though they previously had some doubts over whether the business would live up to their expectations. 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. There are some variant perceptions on Lindsay, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$150 and the most bearish at US$121 per share. Even so, with a relatively close grouping of estimates, it looks like the analysts are quite confident in their valuations, suggesting Lindsay is an easy business to forecast or the the analysts are all using similar assumptions.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Lindsay's past performance and to peers in the same industry. One thing stands out from these estimates, which is that Lindsay is forecast to grow faster in the future than it has in the past, with revenues expected to display 3.3% annualised growth until the end of 2027. If achieved, this would be a much better result than the 0.4% annual decline over the past five years. Compare this against analyst estimates for the broader industry, which suggest that (in aggregate) industry revenues are expected to grow 6.8% annually for the foreseeable future. So although Lindsay's revenue growth is expected to improve, it is still expected to grow slower than the industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that there's been no major change in sentiment, with the analysts reconfirming that the business is performing in line with their previous earnings per share estimates. On the plus side, there were no major changes to revenue estimates; although forecasts imply they will perform worse than the wider industry. There was also a nice increase in the price target, with the analysts clearly feeling that the intrinsic value of the business is improving.

Following on from that line of thought, we think that the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have forecasts for Lindsay going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Another thing to consider is whether management and directors have been buying or selling stock recently. We provide an overview of all open market stock trades for the last twelve months on our platform, here.

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.