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Amgen (AMGN) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Amgen (AMGN - Free Report) closed at $184.08 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.72% move from the prior day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.95%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.94%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.8%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's largest biotech drugmaker had gained 6.7% over the past month, outpacing the Medical sector's gain of 5.28% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.47% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from AMGN as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect AMGN to post earnings of $3.59 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 6.27%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.66 billion, down 6.63% from the year-ago period.

AMGN's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $13.92 per share and revenue of $22.58 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -3.33% and -4.94%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for AMGN. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.2% lower. AMGN is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

In terms of valuation, AMGN is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 13.14. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 23.52.

Meanwhile, AMGN's PEG ratio is currently 2.23. 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. The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.84 as of yesterday's close.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 78, which puts it in the top 31% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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