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Cigna (CI) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Cigna (CI - Free Report) closed at $261.78, marking a +0.6% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.17%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.6%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.67%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the health insurer had lost 11.41% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's loss of 8.6% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.25% in that time.

Cigna will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $5.35, down 10.98% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $45.27 billion, up 2.62% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $24.77 per share and revenue of $187.7 billion, which would represent changes of +6.45% and +3.91%, respectively, from the prior year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Cigna. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.92% higher. Cigna is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Looking at its valuation, Cigna is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 10.51. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 8.62, so we one might conclude that Cigna is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can also see that CI currently has a PEG ratio of 0.93. 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. CI's industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.93 as of yesterday's close.

The Insurance - Multi line industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 59, putting it in the top 24% 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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