Sonoco (SON) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

Sonoco (SON) closed at $57.79 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.87% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 2.59% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 2.66%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.07%.

Coming into today, shares of the packaging maker had lost 9.3% in the past month. In that same time, the Industrial Products sector lost 9.2%, while the S&P 500 lost 9.22%.

Sonoco will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Sonoco to post earnings of $1.67 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 83.52%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $1.92 billion, up 35.82% from the year-ago period.

SON's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $6.33 per share and revenue of $7.46 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +78.31% and +33.47%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Sonoco should also be noted by investors. 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. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Sonoco is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Sonoco currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.96. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 10.29.

Meanwhile, SON's PEG ratio is currently 1.79. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Containers - Paper and Packaging industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.77 as of yesterday's close.

The Containers - Paper and Packaging industry is part of the Industrial Products sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 94, putting it in the top 38% 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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