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Altria (MO) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

Altria (MO) closed at $45.33 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.68% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.45%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 2.12%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 5.41%.

Coming into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had lost 3.36% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector lost 6.3%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.53%.

Altria will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.33, up 5.56% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $5.49 billion, up 2.21% from the prior-year quarter.

MO's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.05 per share and revenue of $20.93 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4.34% and +1.15%, respectively.

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It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Altria. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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, 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 has moved 0.2% lower. Altria currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Altria currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.83. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.16, so we one might conclude that Altria is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that MO has a PEG ratio of 2.21. 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. MO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.25 as of yesterday's close.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 172, which puts it in the bottom 32% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.

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Altria Group, Inc. (MO) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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