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Square (SQ) Stock Moves -0.43%: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Square (SQ - Free Report) closed at $145.01, marking a -0.43% move from the previous day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's 1.12% loss on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.88%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 1.07%.

Coming into today, shares of the mobile payments services provider had lost 6.56% in the past month. In that same time, the Computer and Technology sector lost 1.17%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.59%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from SQ as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.12, down 52% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $1.99 billion, up 57.36% from the prior-year quarter.

SQ's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $0.49 per share and revenue of $7.06 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -38.75% and +49.83%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for SQ should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 2.25% higher. SQ currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, SQ is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 298.24. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 71.8, which means SQ is trading at a premium to the group.

Investors should also note that SQ has a PEG ratio of 8.19 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. The Internet - Software was holding an average PEG ratio of 5.52 at yesterday's closing price.

The Internet - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 176, which puts it in the bottom 31% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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