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American Electric Power (AEP) Stock Moves -0.6%: What You Should Know

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American Electric Power (AEP - Free Report) closed at $88.76 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.6% move from the prior day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 1.85%. At the same time, the Dow lost 1.66%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 10.91%.

Coming into today, shares of the utility had lost 1.19% in the past month. In that same time, the Utilities sector gained 0.65%, while the S&P 500 lost 2.85%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from American Electric Power as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect American Electric Power to post earnings of $1.27 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 4.1%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.84 billion, up 5.22% from the prior-year quarter.

AEP's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.33 per share and revenue of $19.38 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4.72% and -1.14%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for American Electric Power. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. 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.

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 has moved 1.53% lower within the past month. American Electric Power is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that American Electric Power has a Forward P/E ratio of 16.77 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 16.86, so we one might conclude that American Electric Power is trading at a discount comparatively.

We can also see that AEP currently has a PEG ratio of 2.75. 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. AEP's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.89 as of yesterday's close.

The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 148, which puts it in the bottom 42% 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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