At the last market close, Barrick Gold (GOLD – Free Report) reached $15.84, with a move of +1.73% compared to the previous day. The stock’s performance exceeded the S&P 500’s daily gain of 0.16%. At the same time, the Dow Jones rose 0.25% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.06%.
Heading into today, shares of the gold and copper mining company had fallen 10.15% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector’s 9.84% loss and the S&P 500’s 2.7% loss that time.
Analysts and investors alike will be keeping a close eye on Barrick Gold’s performance with its upcoming earnings release. The company’s earnings per share (EPS) are expected to be $0.46, reflecting an increase of 70.37% from the same quarter last year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Barrick Gold. Such recent changes usually indicate the changing landscape of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company’s business and profitability.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to take advantage of this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), boasts an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with the No. 1-ranked stocks delivering an average annual return since 1988. yield +25%. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.57% higher. Currently, Barrick Gold has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at the valuation, Barrick Gold has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 8.94. This indicates a discount compared to its industry’s average forward price-to-earnings ratio of 10.44.
It’s also worth noting that GOLD currently has a PEG ratio of 0.28. The PEG ratio is similar to the commonly used price-to-earnings ratio, but this metric also takes into account the company’s expected earnings growth. The average PEG ratio for the mining-gold sector was 0.5 at market close yesterday.
The Mining Gold Industry is part of the Basic Materials Sector. Currently, this sector has a Zacks Industry Rank of 163, which puts it in the bottom 36% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our individual industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% of sectors perform better than the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to utilize Zacks.com to stay informed on all of these stock-moving metrics, among others, over the next few trading sessions.