Asbury Automotive Group (ABG) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Asbury Automotive Group (ABG) closed at $166.36, marking a +1.03% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.95%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.64%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.15%.
Heading into today, shares of the auto dealership chain had lost 7.47% over the past month, lagging the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 2.16% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.49% in that time.
Asbury Automotive Group will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $8.87, up 14.01% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $3.94 billion, up 52.38% from the year-ago period.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $35.18 per share and revenue of $15.9 billion. These totals would mark changes of +28.91% and +61.65%, respectively, from last year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Asbury Automotive Group. 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.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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 0.77% lower. Asbury Automotive Group currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Asbury Automotive Group has a Forward P/E ratio of 4.68 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 5.67, so we one might conclude that Asbury Automotive Group is trading at a discount comparatively.
Meanwhile, ABG's PEG ratio is currently 0.25. 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. Automotive - Retail and Whole Sales stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 0.41 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Automotive - Retail and Whole Sales industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 12, putting it in the top 5% 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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