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Waste Management (WM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Waste Management (WM - Free Report) closed at $154.87, marking a +1.12% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.89%. At the same time, the Dow added 1.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.68%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had lost 1.14% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Business Services sector's loss of 6.25% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.9% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Waste Management as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.29, unchanged from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.87 billion, up 4.4% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $6.04 per share and revenue of $20.63 billion, which would represent changes of +8.05% and +4.75%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Waste Management should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

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.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.78% lower. Waste Management is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, Waste Management is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 25.34. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 19.64.

Investors should also note that WM has a PEG ratio of 2.33 right now. 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. WM's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.33 as of yesterday's close.

The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 180, putting it in the bottom 29% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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