Amgen (AMGN) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

Amgen (AMGN) closed the most recent trading day at $234.72, moving +1.74% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.22%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.13%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.22%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's largest biotech drugmaker had lost 5.16% over the past month, outpacing the Medical sector's loss of 5.2% and the S&P 500's loss of 10.02% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Amgen as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $4.41, up 0.68% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $6.52 billion, down 0.04% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $17.44 per share and revenue of $26.23 billion, which would represent changes of +1.99% and +0.97%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Amgen should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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 0.22% lower. Amgen currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Amgen's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 13.46. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 20.02, which means Amgen is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that AMGN currently has a PEG ratio of 2.01. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. AMGN's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.08 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 102, putting it in the top 41% 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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