General Electric (GE) closed at $11.39 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.07% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500’s 0.33% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.21%.
Prior to today’s trading, shares of the industrial conglomerate had lost 11.68% over the past month. This has lagged the Conglomerates sector’s gain of 1.58% and the S&P 500’s gain of 1.6% in that time.
GE will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 19, 2018. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.22, down 24.14% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $29.87 billion, down 10.75% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $0.97 per share and revenue of $121.55 billion, which would represent changes of -7.62% and -0.44%, respectively, from the prior year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for GE should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company’s business outlook.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.
The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. GE is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
Digging into valuation, GE currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 11.65. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 19.37, which means GE is trading at a discount to the group.
Also, we should mention that GE has a PEG ratio of 2.12. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company’s expected earnings growth rate. The Diversified Operations was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.78 at yesterday’s closing price.
The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 159, putting it in the bottom 38% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order 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 follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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