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Lowe's (LOW) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Lowe's (LOW - Free Report) closed at $201.63, marking a -0.74% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.48% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.2%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.19%.

Coming into today, shares of the home improvement retailer had lost 0.48% in the past month. In that same time, the Retail-Wholesale sector lost 10.21%, while the S&P 500 lost 8.48%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Lowe's as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $3.25, up 1.25% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $23.83 billion, down 2.42% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $13.40 per share and revenue of $97.89 billion. These totals would mark changes of +11.3% and +1.7%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Lowe's. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-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. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.29% lower within the past month. Lowe's is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Lowe's currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 15.16. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.31, so we one might conclude that Lowe's is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can also see that LOW currently has a PEG ratio of 1.21. 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 Building Products - Retail industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.97 as of yesterday's close.

The Building Products - Retail industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 42, which puts it in the top 17% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. 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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