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Waste Management (WM) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Waste Management (WM - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $113.53, moving +1.19% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.2%. At the same time, the Dow added 1.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.13%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WM as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, WM is projected to report earnings of $0.78 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 29.73%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3.51 billion, down 11.1% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $3.74 per share and revenue of $14.58 billion. These totals would mark changes of -15% and -5.69%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for WM. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

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.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 2.95% higher within the past month. WM is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, WM currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 29.98. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 38.26.

Meanwhile, WM's PEG ratio is currently 3.54. 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. Waste Removal Services stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 5.35 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 155, which puts it in the bottom 39% 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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