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Medical Properties (MPW) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Medical Properties (MPW - Free Report) closed at $6.02, marking a -1.15% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.22%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.31%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.23%.

Coming into today, shares of the health care real estate investment trust had lost 13.12% in the past month. In that same time, the Finance sector gained 1.95%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.08%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Medical Properties as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Medical Properties is projected to report earnings of $0.36 per share, which would represent 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.

MPW's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.53 per share and revenue of $1.39 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -15.93% and -9.93%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Medical Properties. 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.

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.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.43% lower. Medical Properties is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Medical Properties has a Forward P/E ratio of 3.97 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.05, so we one might conclude that Medical Properties is trading at a discount comparatively.

It is also worth noting that MPW currently has a PEG ratio of 1.32. 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 182, which puts it in the bottom 28% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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