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Lamb Weston (LW) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Lamb Weston (LW - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $88.94, moving +0.01% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.75%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.05%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 7.84%.

Heading into today, shares of the frozen foods supplier had gained 2.34% over the past month, outpacing the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 0.4% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.4% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Lamb Weston as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 5, 2023. On that day, Lamb Weston is projected to report earnings of $0.74 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 48%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $1.16 billion, up 15.15% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $3.03 per share and revenue of $4.7 billion. These totals would mark changes of +45.67% and +14.64%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Lamb Weston. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. 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. 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 remained stagnant. Lamb Weston is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Lamb Weston is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 29.33. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 19.08.

We can also see that LW currently has a PEG ratio of 1.1. 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. The Food - Miscellaneous was holding an average PEG ratio of 3.18 at yesterday's closing price.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 50, which puts it in the top 20% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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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