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Albemarle (ALB) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Albemarle (ALB - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $185.46, moving -0.29% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.83%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 4.46%.

Heading into today, shares of the specialty chemicals company had lost 16.38% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's gain of 0.87% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.04% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Albemarle as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be May 3, 2023. In that report, analysts expect Albemarle to post earnings of $6.93 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 191.18%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $2.74 billion, up 142.66% from the year-ago period.

ALB's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $26.61 per share and revenue of $11.79 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +21.17% and +61.08%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Albemarle. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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.

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 11.43% lower. Albemarle is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Albemarle has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.99 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 13.92, so we one might conclude that Albemarle is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that ALB has a PEG ratio of 0.44. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. ALB's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.41 as of yesterday's close.

The Chemical - Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 193, which puts it in the bottom 24% 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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