The Financial Statements

Forward Estimate

Where Wall Street analysts, on average, expect the company’s earnings (and revenue) to land in the coming fiscal year. It’s a consensus forecast, not a fact — analysts are often wrong and tend to revise as new information arrives — but it frames expectations, and a stock’s price largely reflects the future, not the past. Analysts forecast adjusted EPS, which leaves out items such as acquisition amortization and one-off charges, so the fair comparison is with the Street’s figure for the last reported year (which Meridian shows), not with the reported diluted EPS. For a company that has made large acquisitions the two can differ several times over.

Educational information, not investment advice. See it applied across the screener →