Yahoo Finance Air Products and Chemicals (APD) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know
Air Products and Chemicals (APD) closed at $267.67 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.27% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.56%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.41%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.35%.
Coming into today, shares of the seller of gases for industrial, medical and other uses had lost 4.57% in the past month. In that same time, the Basic Materials sector lost 3.21%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.48%.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Air Products and Chemicals as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Air Products and Chemicals is projected to report earnings of $2.63 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 10.5%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $3.02 billion, up 2.67% from the year-ago period.
APD's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $11.39 per share and revenue of $13.12 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +9.41% and +3.32%, respectively.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Air Products and Chemicals. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Air Products and Chemicals currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Air Products and Chemicals currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 23.45. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 12.46, which means Air Products and Chemicals is trading at a premium to the group.
It is also worth noting that APD currently has a PEG ratio of 2.01. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Chemical - Diversified industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.06 as of yesterday's close.
The Chemical - Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 180, which puts it in the bottom 29% 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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Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APD) : Free Stock Analysis Report
