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Big Lots (BIG) Stock Moves -0.5%: What You Should Know

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Big Lots (BIG - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $51.43, moving -0.5% from the previous trading session. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.66%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.58%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.8%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the discount retailer had gained 8.27% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 9.09% and outpaced the S&P 500's gain of 5.22% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from BIG as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect BIG to post earnings of $0.65 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 461.11%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $1.35 billion, up 15.65% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $7.73 per share and revenue of $6.16 billion, which would represent changes of +110.63% and +15.75%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for BIG. 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.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 13.41% higher within the past month. BIG is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that BIG has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.69 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.07, so we one might conclude that BIG is trading at a discount comparatively.

Meanwhile, BIG's PEG ratio is currently 1.48. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. Retail - Discount Stores stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 3.19 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Discount Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 179, putting it in the bottom 30% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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