Alphabet (GOOGL) closed at $1,752.26 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.27% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500’s daily loss of 0.44%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.62%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.5%.
Heading into today, shares of the internet search leader had gained 1.83% over the past month, lagging the Computer and Technology sector’s gain of 4.57% and the S&P 500’s gain of 2.71% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GOOGL as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $15.49, up 0.91% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $43.48 billion, up 15.72% from the year-ago period.
GOOGL’s full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $51.54 per share and revenue of $146.35 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4.84% and +11.06%, respectively.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for GOOGL. 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. 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. GOOGL currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, GOOGL is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 34.44. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 32.5, which means GOOGL is trading at a premium to the group.
Investors should also note that GOOGL has a PEG ratio of 2.03 right now. 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. The Internet – Services was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.04 at yesterday’s closing price.
The Internet – Services industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 192, putting it in the bottom 25% 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.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
