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Applied Materials (AMAT) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Applied Materials (AMAT - Free Report) closed at $43.24, marking a -0.14% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 2.28%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 2.24%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.72%.

Heading into today, shares of the maker of chipmaking equipment had lost 28.45% over the past month, lagging the Computer and Technology sector's loss of 12.66% and the S&P 500's loss of 16.08% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from AMAT as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect AMAT to post earnings of $0.96 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 37.14%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.30 billion, up 21.64% from the year-ago period.

AMAT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.91 per share and revenue of $17.19 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +28.62% and +17.71%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for AMAT. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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 has moved 5.6% lower. AMAT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, AMAT is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 11.08. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 13.62, which means AMAT is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that AMAT currently has a PEG ratio of 1.11. 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. Semiconductor Equipment - Wafer Fabrication stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.11 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Semiconductor Equipment - Wafer Fabrication industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 46, which puts it in the top 19% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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