American Electric Power (AEP) Stock Moves -0.29%: What You Should Know
American Electric Power (AEP) closed at $101.95 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.29% move from the prior day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 1.64%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 1.05%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.03%.
Heading into today, shares of the utility had gained 2.6% over the past month, lagging the Utilities sector's gain of 5.47% and outpacing the S&P 500's gain of 0.73% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from American Electric Power as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect American Electric Power to post earnings of $1.13 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 4.24%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.18 billion, up 9.11% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $5.01 per share and revenue of $18.16 billion, which would represent changes of +5.7% and +8.04%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for American Electric Power. 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.43% higher. American Electric Power is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.
In terms of valuation, American Electric Power is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 20.4. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 19.65, so we one might conclude that American Electric Power is trading at a premium comparatively.
Meanwhile, AEP's PEG ratio is currently 3.29. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Utility - Electric Power industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 3.45 as of yesterday's close.
The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 169, putting it in the bottom 34% 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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American Electric Power Company, Inc. (AEP) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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