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General Motors (GM) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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General Motors (GM - Free Report) closed at $34.42 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.78% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.18%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.14%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.74%.

Heading into today, shares of the automaker had lost 5.14% over the past month, lagging the Auto-Tires-Trucks sector's loss of 4.39% and outpacing the S&P 500's loss of 6.19% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GM as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be February 5, 2019. In that report, analysts expect GM to post earnings of $1.20 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 27.27%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $36.72 billion, down 2.65% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $6.26 per share and revenue of $145.57 billion. These totals would mark changes of -5.44% and -2.64%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for GM. 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.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 1.08% higher. GM is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.

Investors should also note GM's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 5.54. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 9.37, which means GM is trading at a discount to the group.

It is also worth noting that GM currently has a PEG ratio of 0.65. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. Automotive - Domestic stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.23 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Automotive - Domestic industry is part of the Auto-Tires-Trucks sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 11, putting it in the top 4% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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