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AT&T (T) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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AT&T (T - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $28.96, moving +0.03% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.39%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.83%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.97%.

Heading into today, shares of the telecommunications company had gained 1.94% over the past month, lagging the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 3.17% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.58% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from T as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 27, 2021. On that day, T is projected to report earnings of $0.73 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 17.98%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $44.55 billion, down 4.86% from the year-ago period.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for T. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. 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.

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 has moved 0.62% lower within the past month. T is currently a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Digging into valuation, T currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 9.12. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 26.88, so we one might conclude that T is trading at a discount comparatively.

Meanwhile, T's PEG ratio is currently 3.12. 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 Wireless National industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.95 as of yesterday's close.

The Wireless National industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 96, putting it in the top 38% 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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