Marathon Oil (MRO) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

Marathon Oil (MRO) closed at $22.80 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.57% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 2.11%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 1.54%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.3%.

Heading into today, shares of the energy company had lost 11.41% over the past month, outpacing the Oils-Energy sector's loss of 11.61% and lagging the S&P 500's loss of 8.19% in that time.

Marathon Oil will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be November 2, 2022. On that day, Marathon Oil is projected to report earnings of $1.24 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 217.95%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.13 billion, up 46.51% from the year-ago period.

MRO's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $4.81 per share and revenue of $8.29 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +206.37% and +51.61%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Marathon Oil. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.31% lower. Marathon Oil currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Marathon Oil currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 4.71. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.64, so we one might conclude that Marathon Oil is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that MRO has a PEG ratio of 0.33. 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. The Oil and Gas - Integrated - United States was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.36 at yesterday's closing price.

The Oil and Gas - Integrated - United States industry is part of the Oils-Energy sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 171, which puts it in the bottom 33% 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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