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3M (MMM) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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3M (MMM - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $97.29, moving +1.02% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.29%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.55%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.24%.

Coming into today, shares of the maker of Post-it notes, industrial coatings and ceramics had lost 4.42% in the past month. In that same time, the Conglomerates sector gained 1.83%, while the S&P 500 gained 3.1%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from 3M as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect 3M to post earnings of $1.69 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 31.85%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $7.87 billion, down 9.58% from the year-ago period.

MMM's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $8.65 per share and revenue of $32.11 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -14.36% and -6.19%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for 3M should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. 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 0.13% lower. 3M is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, 3M currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 11.14. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 16.08.

We can also see that MMM currently has a PEG ratio of 1.17. 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 Diversified Operations industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.82 as of yesterday's close.

The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 160, putting it in the bottom 37% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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