After AstraZeneca PLC’s (

LON:AZN

) earnings announcement in September 2018,what is p&a analysts seem cautiously optimistic, with profits predicted to increase by 10.0% next year against the past 5-year average growth rate of 7.6%. With trailing-twelve-month net income at current levels of US$3.0b, we should see this rise to US$3.3b in 2020. I will provide a brief commentary around the figures and analyst expectations in the near term. For those interested in more of an analysis of the company, you can

research its fundamentals here

.

View our latest analysis for AstraZeneca

Can we expect AstraZeneca to keep growing?

Longer term expectations from the 25 analysts covering AZN’s stock is one of positive sentiment. Given that it becomes hard to forecast far into the future, broker analysts tend to project ahead roughly three years. To understand the overall trajectory of AZN’s earnings growth over these next fews years, I’ve fitted a line through these analyst earnings forecast to determine an annual growth rate from the slope.

LSE:AZN Future Profit January 1st 19

From the current net income level of US$3.0b and the final forecast of US$6.5b by 2022, the annual rate of growth for AZN’s earnings is 27%. EPS reaches $3.99 in the final year of forecast compared to the current $2.37 EPS today. In 2022, AZN’s profit margin will have expanded from 13% to 22%.

Next Steps:

Future outlook is only one aspect when you’re building an investment case for a stock. For AstraZeneca, there are three relevant aspects you should look at:

Financial Health

: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our

free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks

on key factors like leverage and risk.

Valuation

: What is AstraZeneca worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The

intrinsic value infographic in our free research report

helps visualize whether AstraZeneca is currently mispriced by the market.

Other High-Growth Alternatives

: Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of AstraZeneca? Explore

our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential

to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at

[email protected]

.

View comments

(责任编辑：Fashion)