Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) closed the most recent trading day at $219.06, moving +1.37% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.97%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.96%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.23%.

Coming into today, shares of the independent oil and gas company had gained 21.45% in the past month. In that same time, the Oils-Energy sector gained 14.52%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.78%.

Pioneer Natural Resources will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Pioneer Natural Resources to post earnings of $4.61 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 330.84%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.74 billion, up 155.59% from the year-ago period.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Pioneer Natural Resources should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 1.15% higher. Pioneer Natural Resources is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Pioneer Natural Resources currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.29. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 6.23, so we one might conclude that Pioneer Natural Resources is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that PXD has a PEG ratio of 1.2 right now. 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 Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.29 at yesterday's closing price.

The Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States industry is part of the Oils-Energy sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 181, putting it in the bottom 30% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.

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