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American Tower (AMT) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, American Tower (AMT - Free Report) closed at $211.86, marking a -1.8% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.25%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.22%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 5.91%.

Heading into today, shares of the wireless communications infrastructure company had lost 2.51% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 2.43% and outpacing the S&P 500's loss of 2.59% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from American Tower as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, American Tower is projected to report earnings of $2.23 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 2.29%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.67 billion, up 9.09% from the year-ago period.

AMT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $9.65 per share and revenue of $10.65 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of 0% and +13.86%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for American Tower. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.03% higher. American Tower is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

In terms of valuation, American Tower is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 22.35. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.6, so we one might conclude that American Tower is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that AMT has a PEG ratio of 1.99. 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. REIT and Equity Trust - Other stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.98 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 168, which puts it in the bottom 34% 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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