AeroVironment (AVAV) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, AeroVironment (AVAV) closed at $51.30, marking a +1.32% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.25%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.39%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.09%.
Heading into today, shares of the maker of unmanned aircrafts had lost 6.88% over the past month, lagging the Aerospace sector's loss of 3.89% and the S&P 500's loss of 5.58% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from AVAV as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.35, down 40.68% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $85.25 million, up 9.24% from the year-ago period.
AVAV's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.53 per share and revenue of $359.58 million. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -12.07% and +14.42%, respectively.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for AVAV. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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 remained stagnant. AVAV is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, AVAV currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 33.09. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 22.42, which means AVAV is trading at a premium to the group.
Also, we should mention that AVAV has a PEG ratio of 1.32. 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 Aerospace - Defense Equipment industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.99 as of yesterday's close.
The Aerospace - Defense Equipment industry is part of the Aerospace sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 87, which puts it in the top 34% 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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