American Express (AXP) closed at $360.31 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.36% move from the prior day. The stock trailed the S&P 500, which registered a daily loss of 0.53%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.9%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 0.38%.
Heading into today, shares of the credit card issuer and global payments company had gained 1.26% over the past month, lagging the Finance sector's gain of 1.55% and outpacing the S&P 500's loss of 0.5%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of American Express in its upcoming release. The company is expected to report EPS of $3.58, up 17.76% from the prior-year quarter. Alongside, our most recent consensus estimate is anticipating revenue of $18.85 billion, indicating a 9.73% upward movement from the same quarter last year.
Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $15.43 per share and revenue of $72.1 billion. These totals would mark changes of +15.58% and +9.33%, respectively, from last year.
It's also important for investors to be aware of any recent modifications to analyst estimates for American Express. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.
Our research reveals that these estimate alterations are directly linked with the stock price performance in the near future. To exploit this, we've formed the Zacks Rank, a quantitative model that includes these estimate changes and presents a viable rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.04% lower within the past month. At present, American Express boasts a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
In the context of valuation, American Express is at present trading with a Forward P/E ratio of 23.67. This represents a premium compared to its industry average Forward P/E of 12.05.
Investors should also note that AXP has a PEG ratio of 1.65 right now. 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 Financial - Miscellaneous Services was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.95 at yesterday's closing price.
The Financial - Miscellaneous Services industry is part of the Finance sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 78, positioning it in the top 32% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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American Express Company (AXP): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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