Alaska Air Group (ALK) closed at $55.30 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.8% move from the prior day. The stock's performance was ahead of the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.54%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.03%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.18%.
The airline's shares have seen an increase of 3.72% over the last month, not keeping up with the Transportation sector's gain of 9.28% and outstripping the S&P 500's gain of 0.58%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Alaska Air Group in its upcoming release. In that report, analysts expect Alaska Air Group to post earnings of -$0.81 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 5.19%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3.3 billion, up 5.23% from the prior-year quarter.
For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $5.5 per share and a revenue of $15.42 billion, demonstrating changes of +125.41% and +8.32%, respectively, from the preceding year.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Alaska Air Group. 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 business outlook.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, stretching from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a noteworthy track record of outperforming, validated by third-party audits, with stocks rated #1 producing an average annual return of +25% since the year 1988. Over the past month, there's been a 2.94% fall in the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. Alaska Air Group is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, Alaska Air Group is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 9.88. This indicates a premium in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 9.75.
It's also important to note that ALK currently trades at a PEG ratio of 0.49. 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. Transportation - Airline stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 0.51 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 29, this industry ranks in the top 12% of all industries, numbering over 250.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the vigor of our specific industry groups by computing the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks incorporated in the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
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Alaska Air Group, Inc. (ALK): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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