Yahoo Finance Anthem (ANTM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Anthem (ANTM) closed at $472.34 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.41% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.95%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.64%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.15%.
Coming into today, shares of the health insurer had lost 7.73% in the past month. In that same time, the Medical sector lost 3.97%, while the S&P 500 lost 3.49%.
Investors will be hoping for strength from Anthem as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, Anthem is projected to report earnings of $7.76 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 10.38%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $38.04 billion, up 14.29% from the prior-year quarter.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $28.56 per share and revenue of $153.24 billion. These totals would mark changes of +9.93% and +11.9%, respectively, from last year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Anthem should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest 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 ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.23% lower. Anthem is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Anthem currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 16.31. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 15.74.
We can also see that ANTM currently has a PEG ratio of 1.31. 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. Medical - HMOs stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.16 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 84, putting it in the top 34% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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