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H&R Block (HRB) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, H&R Block (HRB - Free Report) closed at $41.15, marking a -0.96% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.63%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.07%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.3%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the tax preparer had lost 1.82% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Discretionary sector's gain of 1.42% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.94% in that time.

H&R Block will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be November 1, 2022. The company is expected to report EPS of -$0.96, down 23.08% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $200.14 million, up 3.91% from the year-ago period.

HRB's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.78 per share and revenue of $3.55 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +7.69% and +2.58%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for H&R Block should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. H&R Block is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that H&R Block has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.99 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.51, so we one might conclude that H&R Block is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that HRB has a PEG ratio of 0.88. 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. HRB's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.58 as of yesterday's close.

The Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Discretionary sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 187, which puts it in the bottom 26% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.

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


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