Alaska Air Group (ALK) ended the recent trading session at $50.06, demonstrating a -1.01% change from the preceding day's closing price. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.07%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.37%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.03%.
The airline's shares have seen a decrease of 2.24% over the last month, not keeping up with the Transportation sector's gain of 2.01% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.94%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Alaska Air Group in its upcoming release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.56, down 38.82% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $3.66 billion, indicating a 26.27% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
For the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $3.47 per share and a revenue of $14.17 billion, representing changes of -28.75% and +20.79%, respectively, from the prior year.
Additionally, investors should keep an eye on any recent revisions to analyst forecasts for Alaska Air Group. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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 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, which varies between #1 (Strong Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), carries an impressive track record of exceeding expectations, confirmed by external audits, with stocks at #1 delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, there's been a 4.97% fall in the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. At present, Alaska Air Group boasts a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
From a valuation perspective, Alaska Air Group is currently exchanging hands at a Forward P/E ratio of 14.57. This signifies a premium in comparison to the average Forward P/E of 9.9 for its industry.
One should further note that ALK currently holds a PEG ratio of 0.54. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. By the end of yesterday's trading, the Transportation - Airline industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.86.
The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 144, placing it within the bottom 42% of over 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.
Don't forget to use Zacks.com to keep track of all these stock-moving metrics, and others, in the upcoming trading sessions.
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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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