Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Block (SQ) Stock Dips While Market Gains: Key Facts

Read MoreHide Full Article

In the latest market close, Block (SQ - Free Report) reached $64.34, with a -0.26% movement compared to the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.02%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.09%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.18%.

Shares of the mobile payments services provider witnessed a gain of 0.55% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Business Services sector with its gain of 0.23% and underperforming the S&P 500's gain of 4.44%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Block in its upcoming release. The company plans to announce its earnings on August 1, 2024. In that report, analysts expect Block to post earnings of $0.75 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 92.31%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $6.29 billion, indicating a 13.63% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $3.11 per share and a revenue of $25.22 billion, demonstrating changes of +72.78% and +15.07%, respectively, from the preceding year.

Investors should also pay attention to any latest changes in analyst estimates for Block. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the company's business health and profitability.

Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. 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, 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Block is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

In terms of valuation, Block is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 20.76. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 22.49.

We can additionally observe that SQ currently boasts a PEG ratio of 0.62. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. As the market closed yesterday, the Technology Services industry was having an average PEG ratio of 1.38.

The Technology Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 96, this industry ranks in the top 39% of all industries, numbering over 250.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks 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 follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


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


Block, Inc. (SQ) - free report >>

Published in