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Why NRG Energy (NRG) Outpaced the Stock Market Today

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The latest trading session saw NRG Energy (NRG - Free Report) ending at $79.26, denoting a +0.88% adjustment from its last day's close. The stock's change was more than the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.07%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.13%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.14%.

Shares of the power company witnessed a loss of 1.75% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Utilities sector with its loss of 4.73% and underperforming the S&P 500's gain of 4.34%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of NRG Energy in its upcoming release. On that day, NRG Energy is projected to report earnings of $1.38 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 25.45%. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $4.59 billion, indicating a 27.75% decline compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.

Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $6.63 per share and revenue of $25.46 billion. These totals would mark changes of +53.47% and -11.68%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for NRG Energy. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending 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, 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 last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has remained unchanged. NRG Energy is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note NRG Energy's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 11.86. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 15.46, which means NRG Energy is trading at a discount to the group.

The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 94, putting it in the top 38% of all 250+ industries.

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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