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Duke Energy (DUK) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Duke Energy (DUK - Free Report) closed at $88.88, marking a -0.25% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.45%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.99%.

Heading into today, shares of the electric utility had lost 0.21% over the past month, lagging the Utilities sector's gain of 1.04% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.25% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Duke Energy as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Duke Energy is projected to report earnings of $1.14 per share, which would represent no growth from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $6.7 billion, up 0.17% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $5.61 per share and revenue of $29.41 billion, which would represent changes of +6.45% and +0.93%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Duke Energy. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. 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. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an 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 0.13% lower. Duke Energy is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Digging into valuation, Duke Energy currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 15.88. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 16.42, which means Duke Energy is trading at a discount to the group.

Also, we should mention that DUK has a PEG ratio of 2.59. 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. DUK's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.86 as of yesterday's close.

The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 66, putting it in the top 27% 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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