General Electric (GE) Stock Moves -1.99%: What You Should Know

General Electric (GE) closed at $13.28 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.99% move from the prior day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's 3.29% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 3.15%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 4.08%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the industrial conglomerate had gained 9.89% over the past month. This has outpaced the Conglomerates sector's gain of 2.4% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.44% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from GE as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 25, 2018. On that day, GE is projected to report earnings of $0.21 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 27.59%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $29.88 billion, down 10.73% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $0.94 per share and revenue of $121.76 billion, which would represent changes of -10.48% and -0.27%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for GE should also be noted by investors. 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. 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 has moved 3.3% lower. GE is holding a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that GE has a Forward P/E ratio of 14.38 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 18.13, which means GE is trading at a discount to the group.

It is also worth noting that GE currently has a PEG ratio of 2.61. 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. GE's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.87 as of yesterday's close.

The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 215, putting it in the bottom 16% 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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