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Crown Castle (CCI) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Crown Castle (CCI - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $90.93, moving -1.2% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.01% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.22%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.67%.

Heading into today, shares of the operator of wireless communications towers had lost 7.76% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 3.49% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.45% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Crown Castle as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, Crown Castle is projected to report earnings of $1.80 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 2.7%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $1.72 billion, down 1.63% from the year-ago period.

CCI's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $7.56 per share and revenue of $7.05 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +2.44% and +0.87%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Crown Castle should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Crown Castle currently has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Crown Castle has a Forward P/E ratio of 12.18 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 10.21, so we one might conclude that Crown Castle is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that CCI has a PEG ratio of 2.14. 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. REIT and Equity Trust - Other stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.35 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 177, which puts it in the bottom 30% 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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