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While Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) beat Q1 2022 earnings estimates, the stock is down 14% after management said that the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to weigh on procedures as well as supply chain disruptions.
“In Q1, we continued to experience constraints in our ability to meet customer demand, and as a result, on-time delivery performance to our customers was lower than we have experienced so far during the pandemic,” CFO Jamie Samath said during the company’s earnings call after the closing bell Thursday.
Although Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) raised its 2022 forecast for procedure growth to 12%-16% from 11%-15%, “the low end of the range assumes ongoing COVID and staffing pressure at hospitals and assume some continued choppiness with COVID throughout the year.
At least one Street analyst saw Friday’s decline as a buying opportunity. Bernstein’s Lee Hambright has an outperform rating and a $395 price target (34% upside based on Thursday’s close).
While he conceded inflation is impacting margins and supply chain problems are an issue, the “big picture story hasn’t changed.”
Friday’s decline is Intuitive Surgical’s (ISRG) worst since March 2020.
