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Waste Management (WM) Stock Moves -0.34%: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Waste Management (WM - Free Report) closed at $115.32, marking a -0.34% move from the previous day. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 1.56%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 1.19%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 1.67%.

Coming into today, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had lost 1.62% in the past month. In that same time, the Business Services sector lost 4.87%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.22%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WM as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be October 23, 2019. In that report, analysts expect WM to post earnings of $1.15 per share. This would mark no growth from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4 billion, up 4.58% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.33 per share and revenue of $15.63 billion, which would represent changes of +3.1% and +4.81%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for WM should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. WM is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, WM is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 26.74. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 27.13, which means WM is trading at a discount to the group.

It is also worth noting that WM currently has a PEG ratio of 3.12. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Waste Removal Services industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 3.01 as of yesterday's close.

The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 161, which puts it in the bottom 37% 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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