United Airlines (UAL) closed the most recent trading day at $115.52, moving +2.58% from the previous trading session. The stock's performance was ahead of the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.5%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 0.7%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.31%.
Heading into today, shares of the airline had gained 17.28% over the past month, outpacing the Transportation sector's gain of 5.1% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.23%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of United Airlines in its upcoming release. On that day, United Airlines is projected to report earnings of $1.9 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 50.9%. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $17.58 billion, reflecting a 15.41% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.
For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $9.63 per share and a revenue of $66.59 billion, demonstrating changes of -9.32% and +12.72%, respectively, from the preceding year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for United Airlines. 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.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To exploit this, we've formed the Zacks Rank, a quantitative model that includes these estimate changes and presents a viable rating system.
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 past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has shifted 2.08% upward. United Airlines currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, United Airlines is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 11.69. This represents a premium compared to its industry average Forward P/E of 11.65.
Investors should also note that UAL has a PEG ratio of 0.93 right now. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. The average PEG ratio for the Transportation - Airline industry stood at 1.02 at the close of the market yesterday.
The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 205, which puts it in the bottom 16% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual 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.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).