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Astrazeneca (AZN) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Astrazeneca (AZN - Free Report) closed at $50.29 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.53% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.04%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.19%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.28%.

Heading into today, shares of the pharmaceutical had gained 1.06% over the past month, lagging the Medical sector's gain of 2.37% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.84% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from AZN as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect AZN to post earnings of $0.53 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 17.78%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $7.01 billion, up 5.2% from the year-ago period.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for AZN should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 2.67% higher. AZN is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, AZN currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 19.45. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 14.25.

Meanwhile, AZN's PEG ratio is currently 1.16. 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 Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.08 as of yesterday's close.

The Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 126, which puts it in the top 50% 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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