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Medical Properties (MPW) Ascends While Market Falls: Some Facts to Note

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The most recent trading session ended with Medical Properties (MPW - Free Report) standing at $4.89, reflecting a +1.88% shift from the previouse trading day's closing. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.3%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.54%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.25%.

The health care real estate investment trust's shares have seen an increase of 4.58% over the last month, not keeping up with the Finance sector's gain of 6.22% and outstripping the S&P 500's gain of 3.42%.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Medical Properties in its forthcoming earnings report. On that day, Medical Properties is projected to report earnings of $0.22 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 42.11%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $248.03 million, down 19.1% from the prior-year quarter.

MPW's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $0.90 per share and revenue of $1.03 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -43.4% and +18.7%, respectively.

Investors should also pay attention to any latest changes in analyst estimates for Medical Properties. 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 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 ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 5.85% increase. Right now, Medical Properties possesses a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Digging into valuation, Medical Properties currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 5.31. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 12.44.

We can additionally observe that MPW currently boasts a PEG ratio of 0.66. 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 average PEG ratio for the REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry stood at 2.38 at the close of the market yesterday.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 81, placing it within the top 33% of over 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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