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PG&E (PCG) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, PG&E (PCG - Free Report) closed at $17.90, marking a -0.72% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.17% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow 0%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.11%.

Coming into today, shares of the utility holding company had gained 62.87% in the past month. In that same time, the Utilities sector gained 5.09%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.78%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from PCG as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect PCG to post earnings of $0.77 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 3.75%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.10 billion, up 0.24% from the year-ago period.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for PCG. 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.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. PCG is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

In terms of valuation, PCG is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 4.43. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 20.7, so we one might conclude that PCG is trading at a discount comparatively.

Investors should also note that PCG has a PEG ratio of 1.76 right now. 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 Utility - Electric Power industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 4.17 as of yesterday's close.

The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 154, which puts it in the bottom 40% 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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