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Bank of America (BAC) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Bank of America (BAC - Free Report) closed at $28.23, marking a +0.57% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.04% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.05%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.01%.

Heading into today, shares of the nation's second-largest bank had lost 0.64% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 0.25% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.34% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from BAC as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, BAC is projected to report earnings of $0.72 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 14.29%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $23.20 billion, up 2.64% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $2.86 per share and revenue of $92.60 billion, which would represent changes of +9.58% and +1.49%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for BAC. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about 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.

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 remained stagnant within the past month. BAC is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that BAC has a Forward P/E ratio of 9.83 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.01, so we one might conclude that BAC is trading at a discount comparatively.

Meanwhile, BAC's PEG ratio is currently 1.09. 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. The Banks - Major Regional industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.34 as of yesterday's close.

The Banks - Major Regional industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 75, putting it in the top 30% 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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