Air Products and Chemicals (APD) closed the most recent trading day at $306.38, moving -1.61% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500’s daily loss of 0.2%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 1.14%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.39%.
Heading into today, shares of the seller of gases for industrial, medical and other uses had lost 0.74% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector’s gain of 9.71% and the S&P 500’s gain of 4.01% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Air Products and Chemicals as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be February 2, 2023. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.72, up 7.94% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3.29 billion, up 9.96% from the prior-year quarter.
APD’s full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $11.38 per share and revenue of $13.21 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +9.32% and +4.06%, respectively.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Air Products and Chemicals should also be noted by investors. 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.
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.
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 remained stagnant within the past month. Air Products and Chemicals is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, Air Products and Chemicals is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 27.37. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 13.14, which means Air Products and Chemicals is trading at a premium to the group.
Investors should also note that APD has a PEG ratio of 2.1 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. Chemical – Diversified stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.1 based on yesterday’s closing prices.
The Chemical – Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 188, which puts it in the bottom 26% 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.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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