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UPS Stock Deserves a Place in Your Portfolio: Here's Why

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United Parcel Service (UPS - Free Report) stock is clearly on a tear, having gained 35.5% in the past month compared with the 32.4% appreciation of its industry.

Let’s look into the factors that are working in favor of this Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock.

Northward Earnings Estimates: The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-quarter earnings has been revised 21.8% upward over the past 60 days. For 2020, the consensus mark for earnings has moved 20.4% north in the same time frame. The favorable estimate revisions reflect the confidence of brokers in the stock.

Given the wealth of information at their disposal, it is in the best interest of investors to be guided by the broker advice and the direction of their estimate revisions. This is because the direction of estimate revisions serves as an important pointer when it comes to ascertaining the price of a stock.

Impressive Revenue Growth: The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-quarter revenues is pegged at $19.95 billion, indicating an 8.9% rise from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure. Similarly, the consensus mark for current-year revenues stands at $80.35 billion, implying an 8.5% increase from the prior-year reported figure.

E-commerce Surge: E-commerce — the method of buying and selling goods and services via a software platform — is witnessing higher demand now amid the pandemic-induced social-distancing protocols, quarantine and lockdowns. This is an uptrend for UPS, which is evident from its second-quarter 2020 results wherein the company fared well on the back of expanded residential delivery volumes amid the coronavirus-led home confinement of people. Notably, business-to-consumer shipments surged 65.2% year over year.

Bullish Industry Rank: The industry, to which UPS belongs, currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 4 (of 250 plus groups). The favorable rank places the companies in the top 2% of the Zacks industries. Studies show that 50% of a stock price movement is directly tied to the performance of the industry group that it hails from.

In fact, an ordinary stock in a strong group is likely to outperform a great stock in a poor industry. Therefore, taking the industry’s performance into account becomes necessary.

Other Stocks to Consider

Investors interested in the Zacks Transportation sector may also check out some other stocks worth considering like Landstar System (LSTR - Free Report) , Danaos Corporation (DAC - Free Report) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Shares of Landstar System, Danaos and Canadian Pacific have rallied more than 8.1%, 58% and 9.7%, respectively, in the past month.

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