News Flash: Analysts Just Made A Captivating Upgrade To Their Vertex Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:VTNR) Forecasts

Vertex Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:VTNR) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's statutory forecasts. The analysts greatly increased their revenue estimates, suggesting a stark improvement in business fundamentals. The stock price has risen 5.1% to US$1.44 over the past week, suggesting investors are becoming more optimistic. Could this big upgrade push the stock even higher?

After this upgrade, Vertex Energy's three analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$198m in 2021. This would be a huge 47% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 97% to US$0.023. Yet prior to the latest estimates, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$178m and losses of US$0.04 per share in 2021. We can see there's definitely been a change in sentiment in this update, with the analysts administering a sizeable upgrade to this year's revenue estimates, while at the same time reducing their loss estimates.

View our latest analysis for Vertex Energy

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Vertex Energy's past performance and to peers in the same industry. The analysts are definitely expecting Vertex Energy's growth to accelerate, with the forecast 47% annualised growth to the end of 2021 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 6.7% 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 9.0% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Vertex Energy is expected to grow much faster than its industry.

The Bottom Line

The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting Vertex Energy is moving incrementally towards profitability. They also upgraded their revenue estimates for this year, and sales are expected to grow faster than the wider market. More bullish expectations could be a signal for investors to take a closer look at Vertex Energy.

Better yet, Vertex Energy is expected to break-even soon - within the next few years - according to analyst forecasts, which would be a momentous event for shareholders. For more information, you can click through to our free platform to learn more about these forecasts.

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.

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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