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Cerner (CERN) Stock Moves -0.23%: What You Should Know

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Cerner closed the most recent trading day at $91.71, moving -0.23% from the previous trading session. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 2.12%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 1.78%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.48%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the health care information technology company had gained 0.16% over the past month. This has outpaced the Medical sector's loss of 2.04% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.91% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Cerner as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, Cerner is projected to report earnings of $0.88 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 12.82%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $1.49 billion, up 6.53% from the year-ago period.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Cerner should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-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.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Cerner is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Digging into valuation, Cerner currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 24.96. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 19.43.

It is also worth noting that CERN currently has a PEG ratio of 1.95. 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. The Medical Info Systems industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.77 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical Info Systems industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 151, putting it in the bottom 41% 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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