Shares of Agilent Technologies (A) are up in after-hours trading after the medical diagnostics company reported earnings for its third quarter of Fiscal Year 2024. Earnings per share came in at $1.32, which beat analysts’ consensus estimate of $1.26 per share. However, sales decreased by 5.4% year-over-year, with revenue hitting $1.58 billion. Still, this beat analysts’ expectations of $1.557 billion.
Looking forward, management now expects revenue and adjusted earnings per share for FY 2024 to be in the ranges of $6.45 billion to $6.5 billion and $5.21 to $5.25, respectively. For reference, analysts were expecting $6.463 billion in revenue along with an adjusted EPS of $5.20.
Insiders Have Been Selling
Despite the positive performance, when looking at insider activity, there seems to be a lot of selling. In fact, insiders have sold $2 million worth of Agilent shares in the past three months. As a result, confidence from within appears to be low, as the Insider Confidence Signal for Agilent stock is Negative and is below the sector average, as shown in the picture below:
Is Agilent a Buy or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on Agilent stock based on three Buys, one Hold, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 25% rally in its share price over the past year, the average Agilent price target of $150 per share implies 2.85% upside potential. However, it’s worth noting that estimates will likely change following today’s earnings report.
