Meritage Homes (MTH) Exceeds Market Returns: Some Facts to Consider
Meritage Homes (MTH) closed at $156.69 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.45% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.51%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.58%.
The homebuilder's shares have seen an increase of 1.19% over the last month, not keeping up with the Construction sector's gain of 9.47% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.94%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Meritage Homes in its upcoming release. On that day, Meritage Homes is projected to report earnings of $3.55 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 0.28%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $1.28 billion, indicating a 0.2% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
In terms of the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates predict earnings of $17.72 per share and a revenue of $6.09 billion, indicating changes of -11.09% and -0.31%, respectively, from the former year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Meritage Homes. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, stretching from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a noteworthy track record of outperforming, validated by third-party audits, with stocks rated #1 producing an average annual return of +25% since the year 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 4.76% decrease. Meritage Homes is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
In terms of valuation, Meritage Homes is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 8.72. This denotes a discount relative to the industry's average Forward P/E of 9.39.
The Building Products - Home Builders industry is part of the Construction sector. This industry, currently bearing a Zacks Industry Rank of 26, finds itself in the top 11% echelons of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the vigor of our specific industry groups by computing the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks incorporated in the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Don't forget to use Zacks.com to keep track of all these stock-moving metrics, and others, in the upcoming trading sessions.
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Meritage Homes Corporation (MTH) : Free Stock Analysis Report
