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Medical Properties (MPW) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Medical Properties (MPW - Free Report) closed at $7.27 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.76% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.3% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.24%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.34%.

Heading into today, shares of the health care real estate investment trust had lost 39.34% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 8.5% and the S&P 500's loss of 1.21% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Medical Properties as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Medical Properties to post earnings of $0.40 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 14.89%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $356.27 million, down 13.06% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $1.65 per share and revenue of $1.47 billion. These totals would mark changes of -9.34% and -4.49%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Medical Properties. 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.

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 6.1% lower. Medical Properties is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Medical Properties's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 4.48. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 10.54.

We can also see that MPW currently has a PEG ratio of 0.45. 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. MPW's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.19 as of yesterday's close.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 96, putting it in the top 39% 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.

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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