One Wall Street analyst sees 20% upside for Intuitive Surgical stock. Is the stock worth buying near all-time highs?

When it comes to robot-assisted technology, the technology leader and pioneer in the field is Microsoft.Visceral Surgeryfirms(NASDAQ resonance code: ISRG)There's no one else like it. The company's da Vinci platform is the gold standard for robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery. As a leader in the field, the company has been so profitable for investors that its stock has soared 51% in the past year.

A Wall Street analyst believes that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the future.

The Many Catalysts of Intuitive Surgery

CitibankAnalysts raised their price target on shares of Intuitive Surgical to $462 while maintaining a Buy rating. That means the stock could rise 20% from its previous price over the next year or so, and the analysts said they expect "solid delivery" in the first quarter, driven by pent-up demand for Intuitive Surgical's newest platforms and therapeutic device space.

Analysts also called intuitive surgery the "best option."

Major promotion

I think the analysts hit the nail on the head. When Intuitive Surgical announced its 2023 results, the company had invested less than $1 billion in R&D, or 14% of total revenue, and the result of that investment was the March 14 marketing approval of da Vinci 5, the company's next-generation porous robotic system, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). （The company's next-generation porous robot system received marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 14th. The equipment is also being inspected by Japanese and Korean regulatory agencies.

During the company's fourth quarter earnings call, Simmons CEO Gary Guthart said the system's processing power is "four orders of magnitude higher than the fourth-generation product. This means the system has 10,000 times the processing power to collect data, improve sensing and provide better numerical and analytical performance."

Shares of Intuitive Surgical are by no means cheap, currently trading at 19 times 12-month trailing sales. However, over the past 10 years, the company's revenues have grown by 2,471 TP3T and its net income has surged by 2,821 TP3T. Intuitive Surgical's strong financial performance has led to a 5,401 TP3T increase in its stock price over the past decade, which suggests that the stock's high premium is well-deserved.

Should you invest $1,000 in intuitive surgery now?

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Citi is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company.Danny Vena holds stock in Intuitive Surgical.The Motley Fool holds a recommendation for Intuitive Surgical.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

One Wall Street analyst sees 20% upside for Intuitive Surgical stock. Is the stock worth buying near all-time highs? This post was originally published by The Motley Fool.