In the latest market close, Albemarle (ALB) reached $86.28, with a +0.44% movement compared to the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.47%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a loss of 0.31%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq decreased by 0.51%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the specialty chemicals company had lost 0.21% over the past month. This has lagged the Basic Materials sector's gain of 1.28% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.67% in that time.
Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of Albemarle in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company's earnings report is set to be unveiled on February 12, 2025. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of -$0.41, marking a 122.16% fall compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $1.4 billion, indicating a 40.69% decrease compared to the same quarter of the previous 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 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. To utilize this, we have created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model that integrates these estimate changes and provides a functional rating system.
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 22.08% decrease. Albemarle is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
In the context of valuation, Albemarle is at present trading with a Forward P/E ratio of 59.59. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 15.12.
We can additionally observe that ALB currently boasts a PEG ratio of 3.72. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Chemical - Diversified industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.2 as trading concluded yesterday.
The Chemical - Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 233, placing it within the bottom 8% of over 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.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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