Yahoo Finance Waste Management (WM) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know
Waste Management (WM) closed the most recent trading day at $166.01, moving +0.48% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.75%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.55%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.01%.
Coming into today, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had gained 4.43% in the past month. In that same time, the Business Services sector gained 4.31%, while the S&P 500 gained 3.49%.
Waste Management will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.42, up 12.7% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.98 billion, up 6.56% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $5.70 per share and revenue of $19.75 billion, which would represent changes of +17.77% and +10.13%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Waste Management. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. 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. 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. Waste Management is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Waste Management has a Forward P/E ratio of 28.97 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.64, so we one might conclude that Waste Management is trading at a premium comparatively.
Investors should also note that WM has a PEG ratio of 2.31 right now. 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. WM's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.31 as of yesterday's close.
The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 153, which puts it in the bottom 40% 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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Waste Management, Inc. (WM) : Free Stock Analysis Report
