One thing we could say about the analysts on Orbital Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:OEG) - they aren't optimistic, having just made a major negative revision to their near-term (statutory) forecasts for the organization. Revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts were both revised downwards, with the analysts seeing grey clouds on the horizon.

Following the downgrade, the latest consensus from Orbital Energy Group's three analysts is for revenues of US$83m in 2021, which would reflect a substantial 97% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 41% to US$0.72. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$100m and US$0.47 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a serious cut to their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to increase.

See our latest analysis for Orbital Energy Group

There was no major change to the consensus price target of US$9.33, signalling that the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite lower earnings per share forecasts. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. There are some variant perceptions on Orbital Energy Group, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$12.00 and the most bearish at US$6.00 per share. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.

Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. One thing stands out from these estimates, which is that Orbital Energy Group is forecast to grow faster in the future than it has in the past, with revenues expected to display 289% annualised growth until the end of 2021. If achieved, this would be a much better result than the 30% annual decline over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 7.3% per year. Not only are Orbital Energy Group's revenues expected to improve, it seems that the analysts are also expecting it to grow faster than the wider industry.