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Air Products and Chemicals (APD) Stock Moves -0.38%: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Air Products and Chemicals (APD - Free Report) closed at $241.45, marking a -0.38% move from the previous day. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.67%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.33%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.22%.

Heading into today, shares of the seller of gases for industrial, medical and other uses had lost 1.03% over the past month, outpacing the Basic Materials sector's loss of 1.68% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.76% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Air Products and Chemicals as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be November 3, 2022. In that report, analysts expect Air Products and Chemicals to post earnings of $2.77 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 10.36%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3.28 billion, up 15.44% from the prior-year quarter.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Air Products and Chemicals. 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. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.73% lower within the past month. Air Products and Chemicals is currently a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

In terms of valuation, Air Products and Chemicals is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 21.07. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 9.01, which means Air Products and Chemicals is trading at a premium to the group.

It is also worth noting that APD currently has a PEG ratio of 1.48. 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 Chemical - Diversified was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.34 at yesterday's closing price.

The Chemical - Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 240, putting it in the bottom 5% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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