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Altria (MO) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Altria (MO - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $47.97, moving +1.22% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.64%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.68%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.46%.

Heading into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had gained 7.9% over the past month, lagging the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 9.74% and outpacing the S&P 500's gain of 4.56% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Altria as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.26, up 27.27% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.04 billion, down 0.24% from the year-ago period.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Altria. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. 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. 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.

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. Altria is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Digging into valuation, Altria currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.27. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 9.45.

Meanwhile, MO's PEG ratio is currently 2.57. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. MO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.01 as of yesterday's close.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 204, which puts it in the bottom 20% 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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