During the last trading session, Barrick Gold (GOLD – Free Report) ending at $15.84, indicating an adjustment of -0.81% from the last day’s closing price. The stock lagged the S&P 500, which posted a gain of 1.26% for the day. Elsewhere, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.77%.
Heading into today, shares of the gold and copper mining company had lost 5.78% over the past month, outpacing the Basic Materials sector’s loss of 9.43% and lagging the S&P 500’s loss of 2.82% at that time.
Barrick Gold’s upcoming earnings release will be of great interest to investors. The company is expected to report earnings per share of $0.46, up 70.37% from the prior-year quarter.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Barrick Gold. These recent revisions often reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. Thus, positive estimate changes indicate analyst optimism about the company’s business and profitability.
Our research shows that these estimate revisions are directly related to impending stock price movement. To benefit from this, we created the Zacks Rank, an exclusive model that takes these estimated changes into account and provides an operational rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a remarkable outside-audited track record of outperforming, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988 yielded. Past 30-day, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.16% higher. Currently, Barrick Gold has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at the valuation, Barrick Gold is currently trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.07. This represents a discount compared to the industry’s average forward price-to-earnings ratio of 9.98.
Meanwhile, GOLD’s PEG ratio currently stands at 0.31. This popular metric is similar to the widely known price-to-earnings ratio, except that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company’s expected earnings growth. The mining gold sector had an average PEG ratio of 0.45 at the close of trading yesterday.
The Mining Gold Industry is part of the Basic Materials Sector. This sector, which currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 87, is in the top 35% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our specific industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks included in 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 follow all of these stock-impacting metrics and more in the coming trading sessions.