General Electric (GE) closed at $11.71 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.51% move from the prior day. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.9%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.58%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.93%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the industrial conglomerate had gained 4.81% over the past month. This has outpaced the Conglomerates sector's gain of 2.97% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.3% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GE as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 29, 2020. In that report, analysts expect GE to post earnings of $0.18 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 5.88%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $26.16 billion, down 21.38% from the year-ago period.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for GE. 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.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.
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 1.02% lower. GE currently has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
Investors should also note GE's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 16.95. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 17.09, so we one might conclude that GE is trading at a discount comparatively.
Also, we should mention that GE has a PEG ratio of 2.51. 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. The Diversified Operations industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.02 as of yesterday's close.
The Diversified Operations industry is part of the Conglomerates sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 187, putting it in the bottom 27% 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.
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE
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