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Waste Management (WM) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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Waste Management (WM - Free Report) closed at $152.81 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.76% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.53%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.29%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.1%.

Heading into today, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had gained 1.38% over the past month, outpacing the Business Services sector's loss of 7.6% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.24% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Waste Management as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.12, up 5.66% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.45 billion, up 8.32% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $5.38 per share and revenue of $19.03 billion, which would represent changes of +11.16% and +6.1%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Waste Management. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of 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. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.92% lower. Waste Management is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Waste Management currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 27.93. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 26.9, so we one might conclude that Waste Management is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that WM has a PEG ratio of 2.53. 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. WM's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.72 as of yesterday's close.

The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 179, which puts it in the bottom 30% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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