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General Electric (GE) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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General Electric (GE - Free Report) closed at $8.73 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.81% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.22%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.7%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.08%.

Heading into today, shares of the industrial conglomerate had gained 25.15% over the past month, outpacing the Conglomerates sector's gain of 9.09% and the S&P 500's gain of 9.27% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from GE as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be January 31, 2019. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.18, down 33.33% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $32.01 billion, up 1.92% from the year-ago period.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for GE should also be noted by investors. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

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 0.39% lower within the past month. GE is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Looking at its valuation, GE is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 11.73. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 14.68.

We can also see that GE currently has a PEG ratio of 2.23. 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. Diversified Operations stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.66 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 170, putting it in the bottom 34% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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