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Coca-Cola (KO) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Coca-Cola (KO - Free Report) closed at $48.69 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.44% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.56% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.76%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.38%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's largest beverage maker had gained 4.69% over the past month, outpacing the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 0.98% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.76% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from KO as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be February 15, 2019. On that day, KO is projected to report earnings of $0.42 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 7.69%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $7.09 billion, down 5.57% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $2.08 per share and revenue of $31.86 billion. These totals would mark changes of +8.9% and -10.04%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for KO. 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, 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 0.24% higher within the past month. KO is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, KO currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 23.08. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.08, so we one might conclude that KO is trading at a no noticeable deviation comparatively.

We can also see that KO currently has a PEG ratio of 3.14. 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. KO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.06 as of yesterday's close.

The Beverages - Soft drinks industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 216, which puts it in the bottom 16% 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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