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MercadoLibre (MELI) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, MercadoLibre (MELI - Free Report) closed at $1,221.03, marking a +1.89% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.03%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.01%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.37%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the operator of an online marketplace and payments system in Latin America had lost 3.48% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 3.85% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.43% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from MercadoLibre as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, MercadoLibre is projected to report earnings of $4.13 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 69.96%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3.26 billion, up 25.42% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $16.69 per share and revenue of $13.56 billion, which would represent changes of +75.13% and +28.73%, respectively, from the prior year.

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

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.09% higher within the past month. MercadoLibre is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, MercadoLibre currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 71.79. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 21.06.

Also, we should mention that MELI has a PEG ratio of 1.63. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. Internet - Commerce stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.24 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Internet - Commerce industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 169, which puts it in the bottom 33% 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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