Strength Seen in Altra (AIMC): Can Its 9.3% Jump Turn into More Strength?

Altra Industrial Motion (AIMC) shares soared 9.3% in the last trading session to close at $35.59. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 14.4% loss over the past four weeks.

Altra Industrial’s rally is largely driven by a wave of optimism around the company’s strong momentum in its specialty machinery, construction, material handling, agriculture, factory automation and turf & garden end markets. Strong orders for the company’s products, supported by a robust backlog level, bode well for Altra Industrial.

This industrial products company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.85 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -4.5%. Revenues are expected to be $477.7 million, down 2.2% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Altra, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on AIMC going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Altra is part of the Zacks Manufacturing - General Industrial industry. Ingersoll Rand (IR), another stock in the same industry, closed the last trading session 5.8% higher at $43.33. IR has returned -13.5% in the past month.

Ingersoll's consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $0.52. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of +13%. Ingersoll currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research