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Abbott (ABT) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Abbott (ABT - Free Report) closed at $84.22, marking a +0.68% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.66%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.38%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of infant formula, medical devices and drugs had lost 5.28% over the past month. This has lagged the Medical sector's loss of 3.19% and the S&P 500's loss of 5.01% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from ABT as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.84, up 12% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $8.10 billion, up 5.81% from the year-ago period.

ABT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.24 per share and revenue of $31.93 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +12.5% and +4.43%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for ABT. 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.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. ABT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, ABT is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 25.8. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 27.76, which means ABT is trading at a discount to the group.

Meanwhile, ABT's PEG ratio is currently 2.35. 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 Medical - Products was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.38 at yesterday's closing price.

The Medical - Products industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 61, putting it in the top 24% 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.

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


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