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Preferred Apartment Communities (APTS) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Preferred Apartment Communities closed at $25.04, marking a -0.24% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 2.24% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 1.55%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.5%.

Heading into today, shares of the real estate investment trust had gained 7.82% over the past month, outpacing the Finance sector's loss of 5.62% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.46% in that time.

Preferred Apartment Communities will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release.

APTS's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.03 per share and revenue of $419.28 million. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -6.36% and -7.06%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Preferred Apartment Communities. 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.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. Preferred Apartment Communities is holding a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now.

In terms of valuation, Preferred Apartment Communities is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 24.37. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 24.19, so we one might conclude that Preferred Apartment Communities is trading at a premium comparatively.

It is also worth noting that APTS currently has a PEG ratio of 3.48. 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. REIT and Equity Trust - Residential stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 3.94 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Residential industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 83, putting it in the top 33% 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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