Analysts Have Been Trimming Their Noodles & Company (NASDAQ:NDLS) Price Target After Its Latest Report

Investors in Noodles & Company (NASDAQ:NDLS) had a good week, as its shares rose 7.2% to close at US$1.42 following the release of its full-year results. Revenues came in at US$493m, in line with expectations, while statutory losses per share were substantially higher than expected, at US$0.80 per share. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company’s performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there’s been a change in sentiment towards the company. Readers will be glad to know we’ve aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Noodles after the latest results.

Check out our latest analysis for Noodles

Taking into account the latest results, Noodles’ three analysts currently expect revenues in 2025 to be US$500.6m, approximately in line with the last 12 months. The loss per share is expected to greatly reduce in the near future, narrowing 62% to US$0.30. Before this latest report, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$491.6m and US$0.33 per share in losses. So there seems to have been a moderate uplift in analyst sentiment with the latest consensus release, given the upgrade to loss per share forecasts for this year.

Even with the lower forecast losses, the analysts lowered their valuations, with the average price target falling 14% to US$3.00. It looks likethe analysts have become less optimistic about the overall business.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Noodles’ past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that Noodles’ revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 1.5% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 4.2% p.a. growth over the last five years. Compare this against other companies (with analyst forecasts) in the industry, which are in aggregate expected to see revenue growth of 9.7% annually. So it’s pretty clear that, while revenue growth is expected to slow down, the wider industry is also expected to grow faster than Noodles.

The most obvious conclusion is that the analysts made no changes to their forecasts for a loss next year. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it’s tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that Noodles’ revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. Furthermore, the analysts also cut their price targets, suggesting that the latest news has led to greater pessimism about the intrinsic value of the business.