Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Morgan Stanley (MS) Increases Yet Falls Behind Market: What Investors Need to Know

Read MoreHide Full Article

The most recent trading session ended with Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) standing at $93.51, reflecting a +0.29% shift from the previouse trading day's closing. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.41%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.58%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 2.2%.

Coming into today, shares of the investment bank had gained 13.32% in the past month. In that same time, the Finance sector gained 5.34%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.9%.

The upcoming earnings release of Morgan Stanley will be of great interest to investors. The company's earnings report is expected on January 16, 2024. In that report, analysts expect Morgan Stanley to post earnings of $1.15 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 12.21%. Alongside, our most recent consensus estimate is anticipating revenue of $12.83 billion, indicating a 0.64% upward movement from the same quarter last year.

It's also important for investors to be aware of any recent modifications to analyst estimates for Morgan Stanley. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To exploit this, we've formed the Zacks Rank, a quantitative model that includes these estimate changes and presents a viable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has shifted 1.03% downward. Morgan Stanley presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

From a valuation perspective, Morgan Stanley is currently exchanging hands at a Forward P/E ratio of 14.27. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 15.32, which means Morgan Stanley is trading at a discount to the group.

Meanwhile, MS's PEG ratio is currently 1.83. 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. By the end of yesterday's trading, the Financial - Investment Bank industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.31.

The Financial - Investment Bank industry is part of the Finance sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 220, positioning it in the bottom 13% 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 use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Morgan Stanley (MS) - free report >>

Published in