AstraZeneca’s (LSE: AZN) share price is down 11% from its 3 September 12-month traded excessive of £133.38.

Such a drop raises the query to me of whether or not a cut price is available right here.

Are the shares undervalued?

My place to begin in ascertaining whether or not the shares are underpriced is to take a look at key inventory valuation measures.

On the primary of those — the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) — AstraZeneca is backside of the listing of its rivals. It trades at a P/E of simply 37.6 in comparison with a mean of 64.6 for its friends. So it seems very low cost on this foundation.

The identical is true of the price-to-book ratio (P/B) ratio. It’s once more backside of its competitor group at a P/B of solely 6.1 towards a mean of 37.3.

And the identical applies to the price-to-sales ratio (P/S) too. AstraZeneca shares are presently at 4.9 towards a competitor common of 13.2.

To translate these undervaluations into money phrases, I ran a reduced money circulation analysis utilizing different analysts’ figures and my very own.

This reveals AstraZeneca shares are 55% underpriced at their present £119.35 stage. So a good worth for the inventory could be £265.22.

It might go decrease or greater than that, after all, given the unpredictability of the market. Nonetheless, it underlines to me how large a cut price the shares look proper now.

And the expansion prospects?

In the end, an organization’s share price and dividends are pushed by earnings. A danger to AstraZeneca’s is a critical failure in any of its main product traces, as this might show expensive to treatment. It might additionally harm its fame.

Nonetheless, its H1 2024 outcomes confirmed whole income up 18% from H1 2023 to $25.617bn. Consequently, full-year 2024 steerage for the determine was raised to mid-teens p.c from low double-digit to low-teens.

Analysts forecast that AstraZeneca’s earnings will develop by 16.4% yearly to end-2026. Income is the overall cash a enterprise receives, whereas earnings refers back to the remaining cash after bills.

Past that, the agency expects $80bn+ in revenues by 2030, towards $45.8bn on the finish of 2023.

The place will the expansion come from?

AstraZeneca has 189 new medication at numerous levels of growth in its pipeline. By comparability, its main UK peer GSK has simply 71.

And barely every week goes by with no constructive announcement associated to certainly one of its product traces. October has been no exception. Mid-month noticed its Enhertu breast most cancers remedy drug achieve approval within the large Chinese language market.

Earlier within the month it signed a $1.92bn take care of CSPC to entry the Hong Kong agency’s intensive cardiovascular medication pipeline. This consists of the event of ground-breaking lipoprotein work that would profit sufferers with excessive ranges of the ‘bad cholesterol’ LDL.

And simply earlier than that got here the granting of a precedence assessment within the US for the rollout of its Calquence most cancers drug.

My funding view

I already personal shares in AstraZeneca, based mostly on the agency’s sturdy earnings development prospects. These ought to energy its share price and dividend greater within the coming years, in my opinion.

Given this, I see the latest share price fall as an unmissable cut price alternative, and I’ll purchase extra inventory quickly.