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Comcast (CMCSA) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Comcast (CMCSA - Free Report) closed at $39.19 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.38% move from the prior day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.45%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 2.12%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 5.41%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the cable provider had lost 2.93% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Consumer Discretionary sector's loss of 5.91% and lagged the S&P 500's gain of 1.53% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Comcast as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Comcast to post earnings of $1 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 0.99%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $30.29 billion, up 0.91% from the year-ago period.

CMCSA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.75 per share and revenue of $120.67 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +3.02% and -0.62%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Comcast. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 1.17% higher. Comcast is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

In terms of valuation, Comcast is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 10.4. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 10.69, which means Comcast is trading at a discount to the group.

Meanwhile, CMCSA's PEG ratio is currently 0.87. 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. The Cable Television industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 0.87 as of yesterday's close.

The Cable Television industry is part of the Consumer Discretionary sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 234, which puts it in the bottom 8% 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.

To follow CMCSA in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.


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