In the latest close session, APA (APA) was down 1.45% at $18.29. The stock's change was less than the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.52%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.63%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.48%.
The stock of oil and natural gas producer has risen by 9.11% in the past month, leading the Oils-Energy sector's gain of 3.92% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.27%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of APA in its upcoming release. On that day, APA is projected to report earnings of $0.58 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 50.43%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $2.02 billion, indicating a 27.57% decrease compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
In terms of the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates predict earnings of $3.01 per share and a revenue of $8.75 billion, indicating changes of -20.16% and -10.14%, respectively, from the former year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for APA should also be noted by investors. These latest adjustments often mirror the shifting dynamics of short-term business patterns. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the business outlook.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. To utilize this, we have created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model that integrates these estimate changes and provides a functional 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 3.22% higher. APA is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, APA currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.16. This indicates a discount in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 10.59.
One should further note that APA currently holds a PEG ratio of 5.87. 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 Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.73 at yesterday's closing price.
The Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States industry is part of the Oils-Energy sector. This industry, currently bearing a Zacks Industry Rank of 159, finds itself in the bottom 36% echelons of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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APA Corporation (APA): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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