Barclays (BCS) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Barclays (BCS) closed the most recent trading day at $9.31, moving +1.75% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.1%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.61%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 6.59%.

Coming into today, shares of the financial holding company had gained 18.22% in the past month. In that same time, the Finance sector gained 6.37%, while the S&P 500 gained 4.58%.

Barclays will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.32, down 11.11% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $7.16 billion, up 2.91% from the year-ago period.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Barclays. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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 0.2% higher. Barclays is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

In terms of valuation, Barclays is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 5.5. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 8.19, so we one might conclude that Barclays is trading at a discount comparatively.

The Banks - Foreign industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 15, which puts it in the top 6% 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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