Philip Morris (PM) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Philip Morris (PM) closed at $98.36 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.87% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.76%. At the same time, the Dow added 1.05%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.98%.

Coming into today, shares of the seller of Marlboro and other cigarette brands had lost 7.48% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector lost 3.49%, while the S&P 500 lost 3.91%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Philip Morris as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Philip Morris to post earnings of $1.33 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 14.74%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $8.01 billion, up 3.37% from the prior-year quarter.

PM's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $6.32 per share and revenue of $34.73 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +5.69% and +9.36%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Philip Morris should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 6.51% higher. Philip Morris is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Philip Morris's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 15.44. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.13, so we one might conclude that Philip Morris is trading at a premium comparatively.

It is also worth noting that PM currently has a PEG ratio of 3.09. 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 Tobacco industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.69 as of yesterday's close.

The Tobacco industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 78, which puts it in the top 31% 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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