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Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Intuitive Surgical (ISRG - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $478.44, moving +1.43% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.7%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.42%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.26%.

Heading into today, shares of the robotic surgery system company had lost 9.13% over the past month, lagging the Medical sector's loss of 6.76% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.13% in that time.

ISRG will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be January 24, 2019. On that day, ISRG is projected to report earnings of $2.97 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 16.93%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $1.02 billion, up 14.48% from the year-ago period.

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

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. ISRG is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note ISRG's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 37.57. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 29.77, so we one might conclude that ISRG is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that ISRG has a PEG ratio of 2.59 right now. 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. ISRG's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.27 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical - Instruments industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 95, which puts it in the top 38% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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