New Mountain Finance (NMFC) shares soared 5% in the last trading session to close at $8.58. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 10.7% loss over the past four weeks.
The company’s shares moved sharply higher on Tuesday amid bullish broader market sentiment, driven by the U.S. Small Business Administration reforms of the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program, which reduced regulatory barriers and incentivized private capital investment in critical industries. The policy is expected to support lending activity across SBIC-focused companies like NMFC by enhancing the flow of capital to small businesses.
This business development company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.32 per share in its upcoming report, which represents no change from the year-ago quarter. Revenues are expected to be $78.84 million, down 13.6% 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 New Mountain, 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 NMFC 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 >>>>
New Mountain is part of the Zacks Financial - SBIC & Commercial Industry industry. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. (NCDL), another stock in the same industry, closed the last trading session 1.8% higher at $14.11. NCDL has returned 2.8% in the past month.
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp.'s consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $0.43. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of -23.2%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
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New Mountain Finance Corporation (NMFC): Free Stock Analysis Report Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. (NCDL): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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