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L Brands (LB) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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L Brands closed the most recent trading day at $72.14, moving +1.51% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.58%.

Coming into today, shares of the owner of Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works and other chain stores had gained 4.13% in the past month. In that same time, the Retail-Wholesale sector gained 3.43%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.17%.

LB will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.99, up 296% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $3.19 billion, up 37.4% from the year-ago period.

LB's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.79 per share and revenue of $14.41 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +67.34% and +21.61%, respectively.

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

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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 remained stagnant within the past month. LB is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, LB currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 12.27. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 17.71.

It is also worth noting that LB currently has a PEG ratio of 0.94. 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 Retail - Apparel and Shoes was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.55 at yesterday's closing price.

The Retail - Apparel and Shoes industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 59, which puts it in the top 24% 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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