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Lithia Motors (LAD) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Lithia Motors (LAD - Free Report) closed at $321.67 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.37% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.51% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.44%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.1%.

Heading into today, shares of the auto dealership chain had gained 1.51% over the past month, lagging the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 4.62% and the S&P 500's gain of 5.51% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Lithia Motors as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Lithia Motors to post earnings of $9.51 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 61.46%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $6.39 billion, up 47.04% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $40.33 per share and revenue of $26.38 billion, which would represent changes of +0.75% and +15.56%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Lithia Motors should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. 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. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 5.18% higher. Lithia Motors currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

In terms of valuation, Lithia Motors is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 8.01. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 6.69, so we one might conclude that Lithia Motors is trading at a premium comparatively.

Meanwhile, LAD's PEG ratio is currently 1.74. 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. The Automotive - Retail and Whole Sales was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.41 at yesterday's closing price.

The Automotive - Retail and Whole Sales industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 17, which puts it in the top 7% 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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