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American Tower (AMT) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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American Tower (AMT - Free Report) closed at $256.18 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.75% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.65%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.94%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.9%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the wireless communications infrastructure company had gained 8.69% over the past month. This has outpaced the Finance sector's gain of 1.47% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.97% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from AMT as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be February 25, 2020. In that report, analysts expect AMT to post earnings of $1.90 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 20.83%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $1.93 billion, down 9.32% from the prior-year quarter.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for AMT. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. 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. 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 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. AMT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Investors should also note AMT's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 29.26. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 15.69, so we one might conclude that AMT is trading at a premium comparatively.

It is also worth noting that AMT currently has a PEG ratio of 1.58. 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. REIT and Equity Trust - Other stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 3.53 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 171, which puts it in the bottom 33% 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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