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Morgan Stanley (MS) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) closed at $98.80 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.3% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.83%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the investment bank had lost 4.32% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's loss of 1.34% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.68% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from MS as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 14, 2021. In that report, analysts expect MS to post earnings of $1.70 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 6.92%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $13.85 billion, up 18.82% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $7.56 per share and revenue of $57.79 billion, which would represent changes of +14.89% and +19.9%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for MS should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 1.36% higher. MS is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, MS is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 13.11. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 11.2, which means MS is trading at a premium to the group.

Also, we should mention that MS has a PEG ratio of 2.08. 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 Financial - Investment Bank was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.64 at yesterday's closing price.

The Financial - Investment Bank industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 101, which puts it in the top 40% of all 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 follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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