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Main Street Capital (MAIN) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Main Street Capital (MAIN - Free Report) closed at $40.22 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.87% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.16%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.42%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.17%.

Heading into today, shares of the investment firm had gained 2.87% over the past month, outpacing the Finance sector's loss of 7.94% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.79% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Main Street Capital as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Main Street Capital to post earnings of $0.70 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 12.9%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $81.34 million, up 20.87% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $2.89 per share and revenue of $333.51 million. These totals would mark changes of +2.85% and +15.38%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Main Street Capital. 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.

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.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Main Street Capital currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, Main Street Capital currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 13.65. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.72, so we one might conclude that Main Street Capital is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that MAIN has a PEG ratio of 1.71. 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. MAIN's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1 as of yesterday's close.

The Financial - SBIC & Commercial Industry industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 95, which puts it in the top 38% 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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