In the latest trading session, Hercules Capital (HTGC) closed at $17.41, marking a +1.52% move from the previous day. The stock's performance was behind the S&P 500's daily gain of 2.51%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 2.66%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 2.71%.

Shares of the specialty finance company have depreciated by 11.23% over the course of the past month, underperforming the Finance sector's loss of 7.03% and the S&P 500's loss of 8.86%.

Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of Hercules Capital in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company's earnings report is set to be unveiled on May 1, 2025. In that report, analysts expect Hercules Capital to post earnings of $0.46 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 8%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $121.83 million, indicating a 0.23% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $1.95 per share and revenue of $518.51 million, which would represent changes of -2.5% and +5.05%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Hercules Capital should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. Hence, positive alterations in estimates signify analyst optimism regarding the company's business and profitability.

Our research reveals that these estimate alterations are directly linked with the stock price performance in the near future. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system, running from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), holds an admirable track record of superior performance, independently audited, with #1 stocks contributing an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has shifted 0.31% downward. Hercules Capital is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

With respect to valuation, Hercules Capital is currently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 8.79. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 7.92, so one might conclude that Hercules Capital is trading at a premium comparatively.

The Financial - SBIC & Commercial Industry industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 174, putting it in the bottom 30% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.

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Hercules Capital, Inc. (HTGC) : Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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