Heartland Express (HTLD) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know
Heartland Express (HTLD) closed at $16.30 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.31% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.41%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.98%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.08%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the trucking and logistics company had gained 4.28% over the past month. This has lagged the Transportation sector's gain of 7.71% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.68% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Heartland Express as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.31, unchanged from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $197.99 million, up 29.74% from the year-ago period.
HTLD's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.78 per share and revenue of $730.72 million. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +78% and +20.33%, respectively.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Heartland Express should also be noted by investors. 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.
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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 53.78% higher within the past month. Heartland Express is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).
Investors should also note Heartland Express's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 9.04. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 10.74.
The Transportation - Truck industry is part of the Transportation sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 16, which puts it in the top 7% 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.
Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.
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