Yahoo Finance Anthem (ANTM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Anthem (ANTM) closed the most recent trading day at $239.59, moving +1.41% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.16%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.42%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.03%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the health insurer had lost 22.03% over the past month. This has lagged the Medical sector's loss of 8.18% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.89% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from ANTM as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be April 24, 2019. In that report, analysts expect ANTM to post earnings of $5.86 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 8.32%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $24.25 billion, up 8.52% from the year-ago period.
ANTM's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $19.17 per share and revenue of $100.03 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +20.64% and +9.52%, respectively.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for ANTM. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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.
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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.11% higher within the past month. ANTM is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
In terms of valuation, ANTM is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 12.32. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 12.82, which means ANTM is trading at a discount to the group.
We can also see that ANTM currently has a PEG ratio of 0.84. 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 Medical - HMOs was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.02 at yesterday's closing price.
The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 46, putting it in the top 19% 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.
To follow ANTM in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.
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