Hershey (HSY) ended the recent trading session at $161.41, demonstrating a -1.82% change from the preceding day's closing price. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 0.17% for the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.26%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.09%.
The chocolate bar and candy maker's shares have seen a decrease of 6.7% over the last month, not keeping up with the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 3.69% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.24%.
The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Hershey in its forthcoming earnings report. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.11, up 62.31% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $3.25 billion, up 2.3% from the year-ago period.
For the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.49 per share and a revenue of $12.29 billion, representing changes of +34.55% and +5.12%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Hershey. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. Consequently, upward revisions in estimates express analysts' positivity towards the business operations and its ability to generate profits.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-term stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Hershey presently features a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Digging into valuation, Hershey currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 19.37. This denotes a premium relative to the industry average Forward P/E of 18.85.
Also, we should mention that HSY has a PEG ratio of 1.3. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. HSY's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.3 as of yesterday's close.
The Food - Confectionery industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 110, putting it in the top 45% of all 250+ industries.
The strength of our individual industry groups is measured by the Zacks Industry Rank, which is calculated based on the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within these groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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Hershey Company (The) (HSY): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).