Kraft Heinz (KHC) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, Kraft Heinz (KHC) closed at $28.62, marking a +0.53% move from the previous day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.61%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.71%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.53%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Oscar Mayer meats, Jell-O pudding and Velveeta cheese had lost 12.21% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 2.27% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.77% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from KHC as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, KHC is projected to report earnings of $0.60 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 32.58%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $6.08 billion, down 3.49% from the year-ago period.

KHC's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $2.82 per share and revenue of $25.85 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -20.11% and -1.55%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for KHC. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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 0.43% higher. KHC is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, KHC currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.1. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.62, so we one might conclude that KHC is trading at a discount comparatively.

It is also worth noting that KHC currently has a PEG ratio of 2.75. 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. The Food - Miscellaneous was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.35 at yesterday's closing price.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 169, which puts it in the bottom 34% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.

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