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Coca-Cola (KO) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Coca-Cola (KO - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $60.21, moving -0.43% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.93%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.56%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.71%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the world's largest beverage maker had lost 5.68% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 4.15% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.61% in that time.

Coca-Cola will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Coca-Cola to post earnings of $0.71 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 1.43%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $11.69 billion, up 3.26% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $2.61 per share and revenue of $45.02 billion, which would represent changes of +5.24% and +4.7%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Coca-Cola. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Coca-Cola is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, Coca-Cola is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 23.2. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 23.36.

Meanwhile, KO's PEG ratio is currently 3.42. 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. Beverages - Soft drinks stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.48 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Beverages - Soft drinks industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 25, putting it in the top 10% 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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