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General Electric (GE) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

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General Electric (GE - Free Report) closed at $66.71 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.55% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.3%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.11%.

Heading into today, shares of the industrial conglomerate had lost 14.83% over the past month, lagging the Conglomerates sector's loss of 3.76% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.62% in that time.

General Electric will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect General Electric to post earnings of $0.39 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 2.5%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $18.07 billion, down 1.17% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $2.82 per share and revenue of $76.68 billion. These totals would mark changes of +33.02% and +3.44%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for General Electric. 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.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.39% lower. General Electric is currently a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Digging into valuation, General Electric currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 23.79. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 15.65, so we one might conclude that General Electric is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can also see that GE currently has a PEG ratio of 3.4. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Diversified Operations stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.27 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 57, which puts it in the top 23% 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.

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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