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Amedisys (AMED) Stock Moves -0.87%: What You Should Know

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Amedisys (AMED - Free Report) closed at $168.20 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.87% move from the prior day. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 2.93%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 3.04%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.27%.

Coming into today, shares of the home health care and hospice services provider had lost 12.6% in the past month. In that same time, the Medical sector lost 24.66%, while the S&P 500 lost 31.71%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from AMED as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect AMED to post earnings of $1.06 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 4.5%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $515.21 million, up 10.24% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $5.05 per share and revenue of $2.14 billion. These totals would mark changes of +14.77% and +9.44%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for AMED. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 2.05% higher within the past month. AMED is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, AMED is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 33.6. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 15.71, which means AMED is trading at a premium to the group.

Investors should also note that AMED has a PEG ratio of 2.37 right now. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.59 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 44, putting it in the top 18% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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