CVS Health (CVS) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

CVS Health (CVS) closed the most recent trading day at $73.34, moving -1.01% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.18%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.14%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.74%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager had lost 7.45% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's loss of 6.69% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.19% in that time.

CVS will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be February 14, 2019. On that day, CVS is projected to report earnings of $2.12 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 10.42%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $50.38 billion, up 4.13% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $7.02 per share and revenue of $189.54 billion, which would represent changes of +18.98% and +2.59%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for CVS. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

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.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.28% lower. CVS is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that CVS has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.55 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 12.42, which means CVS is trading at a discount to the group.

Also, we should mention that CVS has a PEG ratio of 1.06. 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 Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.13 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 67, which puts it in the top 26% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.

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