General Dynamics (GD) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

General Dynamics (GD) closed the most recent trading day at $229.44, moving +1.42% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.84% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.33%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.74%.

Heading into today, shares of the defense contractor had lost 6.87% over the past month, lagging the Aerospace sector's loss of 1.28% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.5% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from General Dynamics as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect General Dynamics to post earnings of $2.73 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 4.6%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $9.41 billion, up 2.08% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $12.17 per share and revenue of $39.39 billion. These totals would mark changes of +5.37% and +2.4%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for General Dynamics. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. General Dynamics currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, General Dynamics currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 18.59. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 17.78.

We can also see that GD currently has a PEG ratio of 1.89. 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 Aerospace - Defense was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.12 at yesterday's closing price.

The Aerospace - Defense industry is part of the Aerospace sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 227, putting it in the bottom 11% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.

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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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.