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Livent (LTHM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Livent closed at $24.58 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.24% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.08% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.56%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.42%.

Heading into today, shares of the supplier of performance lithium compounds had gained 1.7% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's gain of 7.48% and outpacing the S&P 500's gain of 0.22% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Livent as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Livent to post earnings of $0.06 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 400%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $106.05 million, up 29.01% from the year-ago period.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Livent 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.

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.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 14.95% higher. Livent is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

In terms of valuation, Livent is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 54.9. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 17.6.

We can also see that LTHM currently has a PEG ratio of 1.22. 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. LTHM's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.03 as of yesterday's close.

The Chemical - Specialty industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 174, putting it in the bottom 32% 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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