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Altria (MO) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Altria (MO - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $45.40, moving -0.92% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.34%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.64%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 8.98%.

Heading into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had lost 2.78% over the past month, lagging the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 0.17% and the S&P 500's gain of 1% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Altria as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.18, up 8.26% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.13 billion, up 0.83% from the year-ago period.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Altria. 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.

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 0.28% lower. Altria is currently a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Investors should also note Altria's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 9.08. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 8.79, so we one might conclude that Altria is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that MO has a PEG ratio of 2.27 right now. 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. MO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.91 as of yesterday's close.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 61, which puts it in the top 25% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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