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American Tower (AMT) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, American Tower (AMT - Free Report) closed at $232.21, marking a +1.79% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.34%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.64%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 8.98%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the wireless communications infrastructure company had gained 3.76% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's gain of 3.84% and outpaced the S&P 500's gain of 1% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from American Tower as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect American Tower to post earnings of $2.23 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 2.29%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.67 billion, up 9.09% from the year-ago period.

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

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 0.41% lower within the past month. American Tower is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that American Tower has a Forward P/E ratio of 22.75 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 11.95, which means American Tower is trading at a premium to the group.

Also, we should mention that AMT has a PEG ratio of 2.03. 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. The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.03 as of yesterday's close.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 186, which puts it in the bottom 27% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

To follow AMT in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.


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