Astrazeneca (AZN) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Astrazeneca (AZN) closed at $54.75, marking a -1.37% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.61%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.51%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.87%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the pharmaceutical had lost 1.07% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Medical sector's loss of 2.02% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.08% in that time.
Investors will be hoping for strength from AZN as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, AZN is projected to report earnings of $0.53 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 6%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $6.66 billion, up 3.92% from the prior-year quarter.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $2.03 per share and revenue of $26.26 billion, which would represent changes of +16% and +7.69%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for AZN. 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.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. AZN is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, AZN is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 27.37. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 14.57, so we one might conclude that AZN is trading at a premium comparatively.
Investors should also note that AZN has a PEG ratio of 1.63 right now. 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 Large Cap Pharmaceuticals was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.02 at yesterday's closing price.
The Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 171, which puts it in the bottom 33% 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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