Albemarle (ALB) closed the most recent trading day at $170.04, moving -1.37% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.27% loss on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.47%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.14%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the specialty chemicals company had lost 13.24% over the past month. This has lagged the Basic Materials sector's gain of 1.04% and the S&P 500's loss of 2.86% in that time.
Albemarle will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $4.14, down 44.8% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.41 billion, up 15.06% from the year-ago period.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $26.09 per share and revenue of $10.45 billion. These totals would mark changes of +18.81% and +42.72%, respectively, from last year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Albemarle should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.83% higher. Albemarle currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Albemarle has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.61 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.49, which means Albemarle is trading at a discount to the group.
We can also see that ALB currently has a PEG ratio of 0.56. 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. ALB's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.93 as of yesterday's close.
The Chemical - Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 203, putting it in the bottom 20% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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