Abbott (ABT) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know
Abbott (ABT) closed at $68.27 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.53% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.53%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.36%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.94%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of infant formula, medical devices and drugs had lost 3.95% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Medical sector's loss of 3.96% and lagged the S&P 500's loss of 1.47% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from ABT as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 23, 2019. In that report, analysts expect ABT to post earnings of $0.81 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 9.46%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $7.79 billion, up 2.62% from the year-ago period.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for ABT. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.
Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.08% lower. ABT currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Investors should also note ABT's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 21.76. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 21.43, so we one might conclude that ABT is trading at a premium comparatively.
We can also see that ABT currently has a PEG ratio of 1.86. 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 Medical - Products industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.01 as of yesterday's close.
The Medical - Products industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 106, putting it in the top 42% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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