Yahoo Finance Abbott (ABT) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know
Abbott (ABT) closed the most recent trading day at $104.81, moving +0.91% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.19%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.01%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.09%.
Heading into today, shares of the maker of infant formula, medical devices and drugs had gained 4.24% over the past month, lagging the Medical sector's gain of 5.65% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.7% in that time.
Abbott will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Abbott to post earnings of $0.90 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 31.82%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $9.47 billion, down 17.41% from the year-ago period.
ABT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.21 per share and revenue of $43.03 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of 0% and -0.1%, respectively.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Abbott. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest 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. 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, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Abbott is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Investors should also note Abbott's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 19.94. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 19.45, which means Abbott is trading at a premium to the group.
It is also worth noting that ABT currently has a PEG ratio of 3.92. 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. Medical - Products stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.29 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Medical - Products industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 147, putting it in the bottom 42% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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Abbott Laboratories (ABT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
