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Celebrations may be in order for Atalaya Mining Plc (LON:ATYM) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. The consensus estimated revenue numbers rose, with their view now clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects. Investor sentiment seems to be improving too, with the share price up 7.2% to €1.71 over the past 7 days. It will be interesting to see if this latest upgrade is enough to kickstart further buying interest in the stock.

Following the upgrade, the latest consensus from Atalaya Mining's four analysts is for revenues of €254m in 2020, which would reflect a substantial 29% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are supposed to nosedive 90% to €0.019 in the same period. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of €235m and earnings per share (EPS) of €0.0089 in 2020. There's been a pretty noticeable increase in sentiment, with the analysts upgrading revenues and making a great increase in earnings per share in particular.

Check out our latest analysis for Atalaya Mining

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. It's clear from the latest estimates that Atalaya Mining's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 29% revenue growth noticeably faster than its historical growth of 9.9% p.a. over the past three years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 1.3% per year. Factoring in the forecast acceleration in revenue, it's pretty clear that Atalaya Mining is expected to grow much faster than its industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts upgraded their earnings per share estimates for this year, expecting improving business conditions. Fortunately, analysts also upgraded their revenue estimates, and our data indicates sales are expected to perform better than the wider market. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to this year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Atalaya Mining.

Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. We have estimates - from multiple Atalaya Mining analysts - going out to 2024, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks 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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