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Photronics (PLAB) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Photronics (PLAB - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $18.02, moving +0.78% from the previous trading session. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.69% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.78%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.28%.

Heading into today, shares of the electronics imaging company had lost 7.26% over the past month, outpacing the Computer and Technology sector's loss of 8.19% and lagging the S&P 500's loss of 5.29% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Photronics as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Photronics to post earnings of $0.25 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 92.31%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $183.65 million, up 20.77% from the year-ago period.

PLAB's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.30 per share and revenue of $753 million. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +46.07% and +13.44%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Photronics should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Photronics currently has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Photronics has a Forward P/E ratio of 13.75 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.95, which means Photronics is trading at a discount to the group.

The Semiconductor Equipment - Photomasks industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 3, which puts it in the top 2% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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