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Lowe's (LOW) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Lowe's (LOW - Free Report) closed at $210.26, marking a +0.8% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.34% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.64%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 8.98%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the home improvement retailer had lost 1.66% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 4.11% and the S&P 500's gain of 1% in that time.

Lowe's will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.25, up 26.4% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $22.77 billion, up 6.71% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $13.75 per share and revenue of $97.36 billion, which would represent changes of +14.2% and +1.15%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Lowe's. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Lowe's is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Lowe's is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 15.18. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 9.92, which means Lowe's is trading at a premium to the group.

Meanwhile, LOW's PEG ratio is currently 1.15. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Building Products - Retail stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.76 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Building Products - Retail industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 188, putting it in the bottom 26% 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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