Moderna Q1 earnings: will the vaccine maker maintain its growth beyond the COVID-19 pandemic?

When is the report date?

Moderna Inc is expected to report earnings on 04 May before the market opens. The report will be for the fiscal Quarter.

What to expect?

According to Zacks Investment Research, the consensus EPS forecast for the quarter is $5.18 per share on revenue of $4.62 billion. The reported EPS for the same quarter last year was $2.84.

Investors are keen to see if Moderna can maintain its recent exponential profit growth since 2021 or if any new opportunity may open up for the company. Given that most of the world has entered into a post-pandemic phase, the natural assumption is that room for growth will be limited.

However, the company has shown great confidence in a recent speech that COVID-19 is moving towards an endemic phase that will require the continuous use of vaccines for the foreseeable future.

Moderna projects roughly $22 billion in Spikevax sales this year, along with strong commitments for 2023. The company’s product pipeline, which uses its messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, has planned for the distribution of new drugs for the influenza and HIV vaccine.

Moreover, last week Moderna announced its plan to build a state-of-the-art mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility in Quebec to support a long-term strategic partnership with the Government of Canada. Based on the above, there is good reason to believe that Moderna’s growth is sustainable beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moderna’s product pipeline

Nonetheless, the short-term outlook for the business is still cloudy. The high degree of uncertainty in the economy with the multiple interest rate rises fast approaching, has cast a shadow on the growth stocks. The share price for Moderna has dropped by nearly 60% year-to-date and it’s now traded at approximately 4.75* PE ratio—the lowest compared to its peers, but with the highest EPS.

Technical Analysis

The past six months have seen the value of Moderna evaporate by over 70% as the pandemic cools. Current support might come from a Mach low at 126. On the topside, imminent resistance sits at the level connecting 20- and 50-days MA at the moment. From a mid-term perspective, the band in between $126 to $169 looks like to be the possible range for the price to move.

The current momentum shown from the RSI may signal that a near-term bearish momentum could unfold, although the trend line from the weekly chart will place a massive challenge for the stock to rebound.