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Medical Properties (MPW) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Medical Properties (MPW - Free Report) closed at $6.64, marking a -1.34% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.14%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.22%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.09%.

Coming into today, shares of the health care real estate investment trust had lost 17.22% in the past month. In that same time, the Finance sector lost 4.09%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.27%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Medical Properties as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Medical Properties to post earnings of $0.36 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 20%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $348.07 million, down 1.21% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $1.53 per share and revenue of $1.39 billion, which would represent changes of -15.93% and -9.93%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Medical Properties. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. 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 ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 1.01% lower within the past month. Medical Properties currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Medical Properties currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 4.39. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 10.53.

It is also worth noting that MPW currently has a PEG ratio of 1.46. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. MPW's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.45 as of yesterday's close.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 185, which puts it in the bottom 27% 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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