Moderna (MRNA) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

Moderna (MRNA) closed at $159.87 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.1% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.11%.

Heading into today, shares of the biotechnology company had lost 4.04% over the past month, lagging the Medical sector's loss of 2.98% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.72% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from MRNA as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, MRNA is projected to report earnings of $2.56 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 831.43%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.12 billion, up 25169.46% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $22.72 per share and revenue of $16.8 billion. These totals would mark changes of +1259.18% and +1991.45%, respectively, from last year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for MRNA. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about 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. MRNA is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that MRNA has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.59 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 26.1, which means MRNA is trading at a discount to the group.

It is also worth noting that MRNA currently has a PEG ratio of 0.84. 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. The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.48 at yesterday's closing price.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 190, which puts it in the bottom 26% 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.

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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