Freshpet (FRPT) closed the most recent trading day at $81.79, moving -1.26% from the previous trading session. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 0.21% for the day. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.07%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.01%.
Shares of the seller of refrigerated fresh pet food witnessed a gain of 18.46% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Consumer Staples sector with its loss of 3.04%, and the S&P 500's loss of 2.26%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Freshpet in its upcoming release. The company's earnings per share (EPS) are projected to be $0.12, reflecting a 33.33% increase from the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $291.58 million, up 10.76% from the year-ago period.
FRPT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.36 per share and revenue of $1.21 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -48.48% and +9.78%, respectively.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Freshpet should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the business outlook.
Our research demonstrates that these adjustments in estimates directly associate with imminent stock price performance. 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, 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 last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 6.21% decrease. Freshpet presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at valuation, Freshpet is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 60.69. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 13.69, so one might conclude that Freshpet is trading at a premium comparatively.
We can additionally observe that FRPT currently boasts a PEG ratio of 2.53. Comparable to the widely accepted P/E ratio, the PEG ratio also accounts for the company's projected earnings growth. By the end of yesterday's trading, the Food - Miscellaneous industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.83.
The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 195, positioning it in the bottom 21% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered 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.
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Freshpet, Inc. (FRPT): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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