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CF Industries (CF) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, CF Industries (CF - Free Report) closed at $70.11, marking a -1.97% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.96% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 1.57%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 3.03%.

Heading into today, shares of the fertilizer maker had lost 1.08% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's gain of 0.17% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.19% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from CF Industries as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be May 1, 2023. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.63, down 37.53% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $1.89 billion, down 33.97% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.95 per share and revenue of $7.65 billion, which would represent changes of -48.5% and -31.59%, respectively, from the prior year.

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

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 10.02% lower. CF Industries is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that CF Industries has a Forward P/E ratio of 7.99 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 7.39, which means CF Industries is trading at a premium to the group.

Investors should also note that CF has a PEG ratio of 1.33 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. Fertilizers stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Fertilizers industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 236, putting it in the bottom 7% 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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