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Western Union (WU) Rises But Trails Market: What Investors Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Western Union (WU - Free Report) closed at $10.58, marking a +0.57% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.1% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.91%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.35%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the money transfer company had lost 5.65% over the past month. This has lagged the Business Services sector's loss of 1.85% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.22% in that time.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Western Union in its forthcoming earnings report. On that day, Western Union is projected to report earnings of $0.42 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 13.51%. Simultaneously, our latest consensus estimate expects the revenue to be $1.03 billion, showing a 2.48% drop compared to the year-ago quarter.

In terms of the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates predict earnings of $1.77 per share and a revenue of $4.18 billion, indicating changes of +1.72% and -4.11%, respectively, from the former year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Western Union should also be noted by investors. 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 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.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Western Union is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Western Union has a Forward P/E ratio of 5.95 right now. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 15.54.

It's also important to note that WU currently trades at a PEG ratio of 1.48. 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. As of the close of trade yesterday, the Financial Transaction Services industry held an average PEG ratio of 1.26.

The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 75, putting it in the top 30% 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.


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