Citizens (CIA) Moves 5.4% Higher: Will This Strength Last?

Citizens (CIA) shares soared 5.4% in the last trading session to close at $5.89. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 11.4% gain over the past four weeks.

Citizens is well positioned to grow banking on solid customer base and strong presence in underserved niche market, streamlined sales process, new product introductions and product enhancements.

Its low risk business model, strong balance sheet underpinned by a prudent Investment portfolio mix, reserving as well as capital and liquidity adds to the upside. While CIA has no debt but access to $20 million line of credit offers financial flexibility. 

This insurance company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.06 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +20%. Revenues are expected to be $63.46 million, up 4.2% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Citizens, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on CIA going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Citizens belongs to the Zacks Insurance - Life Insurance industry. Another stock from the same industry, Jackson Financial (JXN), closed the last trading session 1.2% higher at $100.79. Over the past month, JXN has returned 4.3%.

For Jackson Financial, the consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $5.23. This represents a change of +13.7% from what the company reported a year ago. Jackson Financial currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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