Aston Martin (LSE:AML) shares have jumped over 30% from a 52-week low of 35p in March. And while that’s still miles off the £45 per share the car maker went public at in 2018, it does show how much open space is there for a potential turnaround.

But will Aston Martin accelerate further down the road to recovery over the next year? Or is this yet another false start? Let’s see what the experts think.

The latest forecasts

Right now (26 May), the Aston Martin share price is 47p. There are 12 analysts who have given the FTSE 250 stock a 12-month price forecast, with the average target sitting at…drumroll…47p.

So, if this proves correct, it implies that the share price will go nowhere in 12 months’ time. But there’s naturally a wide range of views feeding into that average, with one broker giving a target of 30p and others (Citigroup and Barclays) eyeing 55p.

In other words, the stock could rise roughly 17% if the bulls are right but fall 36% if the City bear is correct. Both could end up wide of the mark, but the key takeaway from these numbers is that analysts aren’t really convinced that Aston Martin is about to turn a corner.

Seemingly, they need more convincing that the luxury car maker’s financials are stabilising before noticeably hiking their projections.

How did the last quarter go?

In late April, though, we got the firm’s Q1 results and they were rather encouraging, in my view.

Revenue increased 16% year on year to £270.4m as a pepped-up range of models and the $1m Valhalla hypercar drove a 17% rise in the average selling price (ASP).

This helped the gross margin improve by 680 basis points to 34.7% and the adjusted operating loss shrink from £64.5m to £56.9m. Sadly, the company has also laid off a fifth of its workforce as it tries to improve cash flows.

CEO Adrian Hallmark commented: “Further financial improvement is expected through the rest of the year as we benefit from our expanding core model range, continued Valhalla deliveries following terrific recent five-star driving reviews, and ongoing operational discipline.”

However, despite this positive outlook, full-year guidance was left unchanged because of geopolitical and US tariff uncertainty. Management expects around 500 Valhalla deliveries this year, with gross margins expected to push towards the high 30s.

Meanwhile, analysts see the annual adjusted operating loss falling to £92m from £189m last year. So there’s some progress to cling onto for shareholders looking ahead.

Where next?

Will the share price keep ticking up? Well, the Middle East situation is concerning, given how important this market is for high-margin sales of luxury cars.

But the main Bond villain here for me is the balance sheet, with net debt of £1.46bn. This is estimated to eat up £150m in net interest expenses this year, suggesting that the £230m of liquidity that Aston Martin finished March with might be enough. Losses are continuing.

In my eyes, the stock does have massive rebound potential, but too many things need to go right. I would like to see profitability keep improving before I say the stock’s worth looking at.

In my opinion, there are better opportunities elsewhere in the FTSE 250.

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Ben McPoland has no position in any of the companies mentioned.