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Nucor (NUE) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Nucor (NUE - Free Report) closed at $136.14, marking a +1.08% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.31%. At the same time, the Dow added 1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 4.19%.

Heading into today, shares of the steel company had lost 9.17% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's loss of 5.45% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.12% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Nucor as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Nucor is projected to report earnings of $5.32 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 44.98%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $8.99 billion, down 23.77% from the prior-year quarter.

NUE's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $17 per share and revenue of $35.45 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -40.95% and -14.61%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Nucor. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 1.7% lower within the past month. Nucor is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Nucor is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 7.92. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 7.6, which means Nucor is trading at a premium to the group.

The Steel - Producers industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 57, putting it in the top 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.

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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