Olympic Steel (ZEUS) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Olympic Steel (ZEUS) closed at $49 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.64% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.23% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.84%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.24%.

Heading into today, shares of the steel maker had gained 13.98% over the past month, outpacing the Basic Materials sector's gain of 5.3% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.67% in that time.

Olympic Steel will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, Olympic Steel is projected to report earnings of $1.26 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 61.35%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $636.4 million, down 10.26% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $3.60 per share and revenue of $2.26 billion, which would represent changes of -53.67% and -11.66%, respectively, from the prior year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Olympic Steel. 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.

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 ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Olympic Steel is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Olympic Steel has a Forward P/E ratio of 13.52 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 8.39, so we one might conclude that Olympic Steel is trading at a premium comparatively.

The Steel - Producers industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 80, putting it in the top 32% 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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Olympic Steel, Inc. (ZEUS) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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