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Lowe's (LOW) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Lowe's (LOW - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $207.90, moving +1.91% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.83%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the home improvement retailer had lost 0.04% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Retail-Wholesale sector's loss of 6.88% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.68% in that time.

LOW will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect LOW to post earnings of $2.24 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 13.13%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $21.55 billion, down 3.41% from the year-ago period.

LOW's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $11.26 per share and revenue of $93.07 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +27.09% and +3.88%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for LOW. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. 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. 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.

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. LOW is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, LOW is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 18.11. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 16.01, so we one might conclude that LOW is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that LOW has a PEG ratio of 1.28. 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. LOW's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.82 as of yesterday's close.

The Building Products - Retail industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 11, which puts it in the top 5% 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.

To follow LOW in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.


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