Yahoo Finance Coca-Cola (KO) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Coca-Cola (KO) closed the most recent trading day at $52.04, moving +0.42% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.23%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.85%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.08%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the world's largest beverage maker had gained 0.35% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 1.41% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.84% in that time.
Investors will be hoping for strength from KO as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be July 23, 2019. On that day, KO is projected to report earnings of $0.62 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 1.64%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $9.68 billion, up 8.38% from the prior-year quarter.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $2.09 per share and revenue of $35.33 billion. These totals would mark changes of +0.48% and +10.89%, respectively, from last year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for KO. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. KO currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, KO currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 24.75. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 24.4, so we one might conclude that KO is trading at a premium comparatively.
We can also see that KO currently has a PEG ratio of 3.55. 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. KO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.25 as of yesterday's close.
The Beverages - Soft drinks industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 216, putting it in the bottom 16% 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.
To follow KO in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.
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Coca-Cola Company (The) (KO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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