Pilgrim's Pride (PPC) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

Pilgrim's Pride (PPC) closed the most recent trading day at $30.41, moving +1.84% from the previous trading session. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.95%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.64%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.12%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the poultry producer had lost 7.3% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 1.09% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.49% in that time.

Pilgrim's Pride will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, Pilgrim's Pride is projected to report earnings of $1.17 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 85.71%.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Pilgrim's Pride. 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.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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 14.29% higher within the past month. Pilgrim's Pride currently has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Pilgrim's Pride has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.03 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 9.17, which means Pilgrim's Pride is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that PPC currently has a PEG ratio of 0.54. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. PPC's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.23 as of yesterday's close.

The Food - Meat Products industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 21, putting it in the top 9% 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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