Yahoo Finance WestRock (WRK) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
WestRock (WRK) closed at $38.87 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.07% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.95%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.64%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.15%.
Heading into today, shares of the paper and packaging company had lost 14.77% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's loss of 11.11% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.49% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WestRock as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be August 4, 2022. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.49, up 49% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.51 billion, up 14.41% from the year-ago period.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $5.11 per share and revenue of $21.4 billion. These totals would mark changes of +50.74% and +14.17%, respectively, from last year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for WestRock. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-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. 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.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. WestRock is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, WestRock is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 7.68. This represents a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 8.47.
Investors should also note that WRK has a PEG ratio of 0.35 right now. 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. The Paper and Related Products was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.35 at yesterday's closing price.
The Paper and Related Products industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 45, putting it in the top 18% 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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