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Square (SQ) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Square (SQ - Free Report) closed at $75.97, marking a -0.87% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.18%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.24%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.03%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the mobile payments services provider had gained 12.95% over the past month. This has outpaced the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 5.62% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.28% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from SQ as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be February 27, 2019. In that report, analysts expect SQ to post earnings of $0.13 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 62.5%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $908.21 million, up 47.43% from the year-ago period.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for SQ. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for 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.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 2.86% higher. SQ is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Looking at its valuation, SQ is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 110.04. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 54.28, which means SQ is trading at a premium to the group.

Meanwhile, SQ's PEG ratio is currently 4.4. 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 - Software stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.86 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Internet - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 25, which puts it in the top 10% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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