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Select Medical (SEM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Select Medical (SEM - Free Report) closed at $34.62, marking a +1.41% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.42%.

Heading into today, shares of the hospital and rehabilitation center operator had gained 3.07% over the past month, outpacing the Medical sector's loss of 2.13% and lagging the S&P 500's gain of 6.32% in that time.

SEM will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, SEM is projected to report earnings of $0.65 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 75.68%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $1.48 billion, up 4.37% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $2.23 per share and revenue of $5.9 billion. These totals would mark changes of +17.99% and +6.7%, respectively, from last year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for SEM should also be noted by investors. 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.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. SEM is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Digging into valuation, SEM currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 15.53. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.03, so we one might conclude that SEM is trading at a discount comparatively.

We can also see that SEM currently has a PEG ratio of 1.04. 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. Medical - HMOs stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.34 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 167, which puts it in the bottom 35% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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.

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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