Altria (MO) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

Altria (MO) closed at $49.62 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.75% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.71% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.81%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.79%.

Coming into today, shares of the owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker had lost 1.83% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector gained 2.37%, while the S&P 500 gained 4.77%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from MO as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 30, 2020. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.01, up 6.32% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.85 billion, up 1.36% from the year-ago period.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for MO. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-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. 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 has moved 0.08% lower. MO is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Looking at its valuation, MO is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 11.16. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 11.86, which means MO is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that MO currently has a PEG ratio of 1.74. 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. Tobacco stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.74 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 104, which puts it in the top 41% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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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