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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 $163.87, marking a +0.43% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.37%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.98%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.62%.

Coming into today, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had gained 8.72% in the past month. In that same time, the Business Services sector gained 1.92%, while the S&P 500 gained 3.71%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Waste Management as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be April 26, 2023. In that report, analysts expect Waste Management to post earnings of $1.39 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 7.75%. 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.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Waste Management. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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 remained stagnant within the past month. Waste Management is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

In terms of valuation, Waste Management is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 27. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 22.87, so we one might conclude that Waste Management is trading at a premium comparatively.

Meanwhile, WM's PEG ratio is currently 2.48. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Waste Removal Services industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.86 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 195, putting it in the bottom 23% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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