Yahoo Finance Altria (MO) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know
Altria (MO) closed the most recent trading day at $47.63, moving +1.32% from the previous trading session. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.12% loss on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.05%.
Coming into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had gained 4.68% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector gained 7.37%, while the S&P 500 gained 5.93%.
Investors will be hoping for strength from Altria as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.17, up 7.34% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $5.13 billion, up 0.83% from the year-ago period.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $4.84 per share and revenue of $20.79 billion. These totals would mark changes of +4.99% and -1.52%, respectively, from last year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Altria. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for 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.
Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.09% lower. Altria is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Altria currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 9.72. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.93, so we one might conclude that Altria is trading at a discount comparatively.
We can also see that MO currently has a PEG ratio of 2.43. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Tobacco industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.65 as of yesterday's close.
The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 63, which puts it in the top 25% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.
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Altria Group, Inc. (MO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
