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3M (MMM) Stock Moves -0.04%: What You Should Know

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3M (MMM - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $98.47, moving -0.04% from the previous trading session. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.1%. Elsewhere, the Dow saw an upswing of 0.04%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq depreciated by 0.16%.

The maker of Post-it notes, industrial coatings and ceramics's shares have seen an increase of 8.31% over the last month, not keeping up with the Conglomerates sector's gain of 12.38% and the S&P 500's gain of 10.77%.

Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of 3M in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.32, up 1.75% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $7.67 billion, down 5.01% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $9.12 per share and revenue of $31.76 billion, which would represent changes of -9.7% and -7.23%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for 3M should also be noted by investors. 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 demonstrates that these adjustments in estimates directly associate with imminent stock price performance. 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, spanning from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), boasts an impressive track record of outperformance, audited externally, with #1 ranked stocks yielding an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. 3M is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

In the context of valuation, 3M is at present trading with a Forward P/E ratio of 10.8. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 16.73.

Also, we should mention that MMM has a PEG ratio of 1.47. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. The Diversified Operations industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.18 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 71, which puts it in the top 29% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered 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.

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


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