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Mosaic (MOS) Stock Moves -0.83%: What You Should Know

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Mosaic (MOS - Free Report) closed at $28.55 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.83% move from the prior day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's 2.06% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 1.81%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.99%.

Heading into today, shares of the fertilizer maker had lost 18.81% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's loss of 6.32% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.47% in that time.

MOS will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be February 18, 2019. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.55, up 61.76% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.26 billion, up 8.08% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $1.91 per share and revenue of $9.38 billion, which would represent changes of +75.23% and +26.6%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for MOS. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest 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. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.54% higher within the past month. MOS is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, MOS currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 15.09. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 19.3, which means MOS is trading at a discount to the group.

Investors should also note that MOS has a PEG ratio of 2.16 right now. 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. The Fertilizers was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.62 at yesterday's closing price.

The Fertilizers industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 48, which puts it in the top 19% 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.

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


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