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Cigna (CI) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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Cigna (CI - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $166.88, moving +1.28% from the previous trading session. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.39% loss on the day. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.95%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.83%.

Heading into today, shares of the health insurer had gained 0.04% over the past month, outpacing the Finance sector's loss of 0.24% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.1% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from CI as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 31, 2019. In that report, analysts expect CI to post earnings of $4.37 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 13.8%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $34.10 billion, up 197.96% from the year-ago period.

CI's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $16.77 per share and revenue of $136.71 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +17.93% and +184.15%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for CI should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.03% higher. CI is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, CI is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 9.82. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 10.85, so we one might conclude that CI is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that CI has a PEG ratio of 0.84. 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. Insurance - Multi line stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.16 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Insurance - Multi line industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 189, putting it in the bottom 26% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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