Amazon (AMZN) Declines More Than Market: Some Information for Investors
Amazon (AMZN) closed at $219.36 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.84% move from the prior day. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 0.07% for the day. On the other hand, the Dow registered a loss of 0.37%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq increased by 0.03%.
The online retailer's shares have seen an increase of 2.99% over the last month, surpassing the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 1.87% and falling behind the S&P 500's gain of 3.94%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Amazon in its upcoming release. The company is predicted to post an EPS of $1.32, indicating a 7.32% growth compared to the equivalent quarter last year. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $161.99 billion, indicating a 9.47% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $6.22 per share and revenue of $694.49 billion, indicating changes of +12.48% and +8.86%, respectively, compared to the previous year.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Amazon. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the business outlook.
Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. 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. Over the past month, there's been a 0.5% rise in the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. Amazon currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at valuation, Amazon is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 35.93. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 25, so one might conclude that Amazon is trading at a premium comparatively.
One should further note that AMZN currently holds a PEG ratio of 1.68. 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. The Internet - Commerce was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.44 at yesterday's closing price.
The Internet - Commerce industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 62, this industry ranks in the top 26% of all industries, numbering over 250.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained 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.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
Zacks Investment Research