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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) ended the recent trading session at $60.34, demonstrating a -0.61% swing from the preceding day's closing price. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.17%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.25%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.37%.

The world's largest beverage maker's shares have seen an increase of 1.64% over the last month, surpassing the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 1.61% and falling behind the S&P 500's gain of 3.8%.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Coca-Cola in its forthcoming earnings report. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of $0.70, marking a 2.94% rise compared to the same quarter of the previous year. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $11.02 billion, reflecting a 0.34% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $2.81 per share and a revenue of $45.99 billion, demonstrating changes of +4.46% and +0.51%, respectively, from the preceding year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Coca-Cola. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest 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, which varies between #1 (Strong Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), carries an impressive track record of exceeding expectations, confirmed by external audits, with stocks at #1 delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.3% higher. Coca-Cola presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In the context of valuation, Coca-Cola is at present trading with a Forward P/E ratio of 21.6. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.67, so one might conclude that Coca-Cola is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that KO has a PEG ratio of 3.44. 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 Beverages - Soft drinks industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.38 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Beverages - Soft drinks industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 40, this industry ranks in the top 16% of all industries, numbering over 250.

The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained 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 use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.


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