American Tower (AMT) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, American Tower (AMT) closed at $220.08, marking a +1.34% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 3.06%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 2.8%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.16%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the wireless communications infrastructure company had lost 13.43% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's loss of 5.47% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.15% in that time.

American Tower will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, American Tower is projected to report earnings of $2.42 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 2.81%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $2.66 billion, up 8.51% from the year-ago period.

AMT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $9.85 per share and revenue of $10.65 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +2.07% and +13.77%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for American Tower. 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.

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 has moved 0.14% higher. American Tower currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, American Tower currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 22.05. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 11.51, which means American Tower is trading at a premium to the group.

Meanwhile, AMT's PEG ratio is currently 1.9. 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. REIT and Equity Trust - Other stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.83 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 94, which puts it in the top 38% 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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