Air Products and Chemicals (APD) closed at $299.53 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.62% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500’s daily gain of 1.23%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.84%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.24%.
Prior to today’s trading, shares of the seller of gases for industrial, medical and other uses had gained 7.9% over the past month. This has outpaced the Basic Materials sector’s gain of 5.3% and the S&P 500’s gain of 4.67% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Air Products and Chemicals as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Air Products and Chemicals is projected to report earnings of $2.91 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 11.07%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $3.28 billion, up 2.86% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $11.42 per share and revenue of $13.28 billion, which would represent changes of +9.7% and +4.58%, respectively, from the prior year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Air Products and Chemicals should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for 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.
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. Air Products and Chemicals is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, Air Products and Chemicals is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 25.82. This represents a premium compared to its industry’s average Forward P/E of 14.45.
We can also see that APD currently has a PEG ratio of 2.71. 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 Chemical – Diversified was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.41 at yesterday’s closing price.
The Chemical – Diversified industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 175, putting it in the bottom 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.
Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.
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