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Lululemon (LULU) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Lululemon (LULU - Free Report) closed at $377.80, marking a +0.29% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.09%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.07%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.98%.

Coming into today, shares of the athletic apparel maker had gained 22.22% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Discretionary sector gained 4.66%, while the S&P 500 gained 4.59%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Lululemon as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, Lululemon is projected to report earnings of $1.93 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 30.41%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $1.93 billion, up 19.48% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $11.47 per share and revenue of $9.38 billion. These totals would mark changes of +13.9% and +15.66%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Lululemon. 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.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

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 1.56% higher. Lululemon is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Lululemon has a Forward P/E ratio of 32.85 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 12.51, so we one might conclude that Lululemon is trading at a premium comparatively.

Meanwhile, LULU's PEG ratio is currently 1.64. 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 Textile - Apparel was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.26 at yesterday's closing price.

The Textile - Apparel industry is part of the Consumer Discretionary sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 102, putting it in the top 41% 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.

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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