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Humana (HUM) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Humana (HUM - Free Report) closed at $547.36 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.33% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.75%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.55%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.01%.

Coming into today, shares of the health insurer had lost 0.78% in the past month. In that same time, the Medical sector gained 5.42%, while the S&P 500 gained 3.49%.

Humana will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, Humana is projected to report earnings of $1.47 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 18.55%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $22.45 billion, up 6.63% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $25.05 per share and revenue of $92.79 billion, which would represent changes of +21.37% and +11.7%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Humana should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

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.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.12% lower. Humana is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Humana currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 21.92. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 19.09, which means Humana is trading at a premium to the group.

We can also see that HUM currently has a PEG ratio of 1.55. 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 - HMOs industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.16 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 197, putting it in the bottom 22% 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.

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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