Essent Group (ESNT) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

Essent Group (ESNT) closed the most recent trading day at $39.60, moving +0.64% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 4.94%. At the same time, the Dow added 4.89%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 4.95%.

Heading into today, shares of the mortgage insurance and reinsurance holding company had lost 24.08% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 20.8% and the S&P 500's loss of 17.66% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from ESNT as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.46, up 12.31% from the prior-year quarter.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for ESNT 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.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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 2.23% lower. ESNT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Looking at its valuation, ESNT is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 6.55. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 7.73.

We can also see that ESNT currently has a PEG ratio of 0.66. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. Financial - Mortgage & Related Services stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.1 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Financial - Mortgage & Related Services industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 19, which puts it in the top 8% 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.