Southern Co. (SO) closed the most recent trading day at $48.73, moving +0.25% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.47%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.68%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.74%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the power company had gained 8.97% over the past month. This has outpaced the Utilities sector's gain of 4.68% and the S&P 500's gain of 7.71% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from SO as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.24, down 52.94% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.92 billion, down 12.62% from the year-ago period.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for SO. 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.
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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. SO is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that SO has a Forward P/E ratio of 16.15 right now. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 18.47.
We can also see that SO currently has a PEG ratio of 3.59. 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. SO's industry had an average PEG ratio of 3.27 as of yesterday's close.
The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 49, which puts it in the top 20% 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.
Southern Company (The) (NYSE:SO): Get Free Report
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