American Tower (AMT) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

American Tower (AMT) closed the most recent trading day at $225.90, moving +0.89% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.42% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 1.42%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.4%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the wireless communications infrastructure company had lost 5.03% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's gain of 1.72% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.38% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from AMT as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be October 31, 2019. In that report, analysts expect AMT to post earnings of $1.96 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 5.95%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $1.86 billion, up 4.16% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $7.90 per share and revenue of $7.42 billion. These totals would mark changes of -1.13% and -0.26%, respectively, from last year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for AMT. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-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. 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. AMT currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, AMT currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 28.35. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 15.85, so we one might conclude that AMT is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that AMT has a PEG ratio of 1.76. 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. AMT's industry had an average PEG ratio of 3.42 as of yesterday's close.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 93, putting it in the top 37% 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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