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Gilead Sciences (GILD) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Gilead Sciences (GILD - Free Report) closed at $65.49, marking a +0.72% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.01% loss on the day. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.12%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the HIV and hepatitis C drugmaker had lost 3.8% over the past month. This has lagged the Medical sector's gain of 1.11% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.24% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GILD as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.62, up 9.46% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $5.33 billion, up 4.8% from the year-ago period.

GILD's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $6.65 per share and revenue of $22.03 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -0.3% and -0.42%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for GILD. 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.

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.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. GILD is holding a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) right now.

Looking at its valuation, GILD is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 9.78. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 23.04, which means GILD is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that GILD currently has a PEG ratio of 3.84. 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 Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.91 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 81, which puts it in the top 32% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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