2023-07-06 10:07:00 ET
While Wall Street analysts are estimating that shares of Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) could fall by 9% over the next 12 months, its gain of 63% over the last 12 months suggests there may be something they're missing. With hospitals using its surgical robots at increasing rates around the world, and with the pandemic's headwinds fading, it's hard to see why analysts are down on Intuitive Surgical's near-term future.
Let's take a moment to examine the challenges facing the company to see what's going on and whether it's more likely to rise or to fall over the coming year or so.
Given that the company has no major competitors, and that management hasn't identified any major barriers to the execution of its business plans in the near term, an outright collapse in the stock is probably off the table. There is one big risk that analysts are probably thinking about with Intuitive Surgical stock, however: its valuation. Its price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is above 90, which is quite high compared to the healthcare sector's average P/E of 25.
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Wall Street Thinks Intuitive Surgical Stock Will Fall, But Investors Should Be Skeptical