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Bausch Health (BHC) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Bausch Health (BHC - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $22.34, moving +0.4% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.07%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.65%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.71%.

Heading into today, shares of the drugmaker had gained 3.2% over the past month, outpacing the Medical sector's loss of 2.4% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.58% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from BHC as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be February 27, 2019. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.88, down 10.2% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $2.09 billion, down 3.23% from the year-ago period.

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

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.22% higher within the past month. BHC is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Investors should also note BHC's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 5.77. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 9.16.

Meanwhile, BHC's PEG ratio is currently 0.29. 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 Medical - Generic Drugs was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.13 at yesterday's closing price.

The Medical - Generic Drugs industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 40, putting it in the top 16% 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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