Square (SQ) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, Square (SQ) closed at $255.79, marking a +0.27% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.91% loss on the day.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the mobile payments services provider had lost 0.88% over the past month. This has lagged the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 2.86% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.01% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from SQ as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect SQ to post earnings of $0.38 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 11.76%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.5 billion, up 48.48% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $1.87 per share and revenue of $18.83 billion. These totals would mark changes of +122.62% and +98.21%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for SQ. 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.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. SQ is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, SQ is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 136.59. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 59.87.

Also, we should mention that SQ has a PEG ratio of 4.35. 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. SQ's industry had an average PEG ratio of 3.85 as of yesterday's close.

The Internet - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 205, putting it in the bottom 20% 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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