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Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF - Free Report) closed at $9.28, marking a -1.69% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.82%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.79%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.79%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the mining company had lost 11.61% over the past month. This has lagged the Basic Materials sector's gain of 2.53% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.94% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from CLF as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be January 24, 2019. On that day, CLF is projected to report earnings of $0.70 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 169.23%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $781.53 million, up 30.06% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $2.38 per share and revenue of $2.45 billion, which would represent changes of +376% and +5.34%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for CLF should also be noted by investors. 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.

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.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. CLF is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, CLF currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 3.97. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.23, so we one might conclude that CLF is trading at a discount comparatively.

The Mining - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 183, putting it in the bottom 29% 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.

To follow CLF in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.


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