By Sam Boughedda
Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) shares have fallen over 6% Friday on the back of its earnings release.
The company reported after the close Thursday, missing earnings and revenue expectations.
Edwards Lifesciences reported earnings of $0.63, $0.01 worse than the analyst estimate of $0.64 on revenue of $1.37 billion, missing the consensus estimate of $1.4 billion.
The company said it experienced persistent disruption within the healthcare system during the quarter.
"Although hospital staffing remains uncertain, we continue to have confidence in our longer-term outlook," said Michael Mussallem, the company's chairman and CEO.
Edwards Lifesciences sees third-quarter earnings per share between $0.58 and $0.66, versus the consensus of $0.65, with revenue for the period expected to be between $1.3 billion and 1.37 billion, versus the consensus of $1.44 billion.
Following the report, a Canaccord analyst downgraded Edwards Lifesciences to Hold from Buy, reducing the firm's price target on the stock to $106 from $115 per share.
While the Q2 results were mostly in line with our estimates, the company’s lowered forward guidance leaves us hesitant about near-term dynamics, particularly US TAVR and OUS TMTT revenue growth trends and the current trading multiple of shares, said the analyst.
"We believe our thesis – that low-risk TAVR approval should drive continued revenue growth while the TMTT opportunity develops – isn’t playing out as we expected. While COVID staffing certainly has played a role (and management did spend a great deal of commentary on the call regarding that dynamic), we believe that still doesn’t explain the slower-than-expected growth we are seeing from US TAVR and believe slower new account growth may also be impacting total US TAVR growth," he added.