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Lockheed Martin (LMT) Ascends While Market Falls: Some Facts to Note

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Lockheed Martin (LMT - Free Report) closed at $521.82 in the latest trading session, marking a +2.43% move from the prior day. The stock's performance was ahead of the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.22%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.03%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.66%.

Coming into today, shares of the aerospace and defense company had lost 0.77% in the past month. In that same time, the Aerospace sector gained 1.09%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.21%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Lockheed Martin in its upcoming release. The company's upcoming EPS is projected at $7.28, signifying a 0.14% drop compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Alongside, our most recent consensus estimate is anticipating revenue of $19.41 billion, indicating a 6.9% upward movement from the same quarter last year.

Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $29.88 per share and revenue of $79.05 billion. These totals would mark changes of +29.24% and +5.33%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also take note of any recent adjustments to analyst estimates for Lockheed Martin. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the business health and profitability.

Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending stock price performance. 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.

The Zacks Rank system, which varies between #1 (Strong Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), carries an impressive track record of exceeding expectations, confirmed by external audits, with stocks at #1 delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Lockheed Martin is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Looking at valuation, Lockheed Martin is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 17.05. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.58, so one might conclude that Lockheed Martin is trading at a discount comparatively.

It's also important to note that LMT currently trades at a PEG ratio of 0.92. 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. The Aerospace - Defense industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.54 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Aerospace - Defense industry is part of the Aerospace sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 157, which puts it in the bottom 37% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered 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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