CVS Health (CVS) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

CVS Health (CVS) closed at $62.57 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.22% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.74%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.43%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.67%.

Heading into today, shares of the drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager had lost 1.06% over the past month, lagging the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 8.32% and the S&P 500's gain of 5.51% in that time.

CVS will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be August 5, 2020. On that day, CVS is projected to report earnings of $1.91 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 1.06%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $64.28 billion, up 1.34% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $7.11 per share and revenue of $265.10 billion. These totals would mark changes of +0.42% and +3.24%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for CVS. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. 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.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.3% higher. CVS currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, CVS currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.91. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 11.9.

Also, we should mention that CVS has a PEG ratio of 1.4. 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. Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.07 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 28, which puts it in the top 12% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.

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