Altria (MO) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, Altria (MO) closed at $41.41, marking a +1.52% move from the previous day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.97%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 1.88%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.24%.

Coming into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had lost 9.6% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector lost 8.57%, while the S&P 500 lost 9.93%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Altria as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 27, 2022. In that report, analysts expect Altria to post earnings of $1.31 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 7.38%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.65 billion, up 2.13% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.86 per share and revenue of $20.85 billion, which would represent changes of +5.42% and -1.22%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Altria 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. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.07% higher within the past month. Altria is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Altria has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.4 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 8.37, so we one might conclude that Altria is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that MO has a PEG ratio of 1.4. 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. MO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.08 as of yesterday's close.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 162, which puts it in the bottom 36% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. 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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