NRG Energy (NRG) ended the recent trading session at $95.23, demonstrating a -1.75% change from the preceding day's closing price. The stock trailed the S&P 500, which registered a daily gain of 0.73%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.49%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.19%.
Heading into today, shares of the power company had lost 13.33% over the past month, lagging the Utilities sector's loss of 5.92% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.55%.
The upcoming earnings release of NRG Energy will be of great interest to investors. On that day, NRG Energy is projected to report earnings of $3.48 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 26.55%. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $7.34 billion, indicating a 3.93% decline compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.
For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.61 per share and revenue of $36.89 billion, which would represent changes of +6.69% and +20.12%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for NRG Energy. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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, 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. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 0.08% increase. NRG Energy currently has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
In terms of valuation, NRG Energy is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 11.26. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 16.46, so one might conclude that NRG Energy is trading at a discount comparatively.
The Utility - Electric Power industry is part of the Utilities sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 103, this industry ranks in the top 42% of all industries, numbering over 250.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Ensure to harness Zacks.com to stay updated with all these stock-shifting metrics, among others, in the next trading sessions.
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NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).