Kroger (KR) closed the most recent trading day at $62.56, moving +1.49% from the previous trading session. The stock's performance was ahead of the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.06%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 0.38%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 0.44%.
Coming into today, shares of the supermarket chain had gained 5.39% in the past month. In that same time, the Retail-Wholesale sector gained 1.66%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.36%.
The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Kroger in its forthcoming earnings report. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of $1.16, marking a 10.48% rise compared to the same quarter of the previous year. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $34.57 billion, reflecting a 2.1% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.
KR's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.19 per share and revenue of $150.77 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +7.01% and +2.12%, respectively.
Additionally, investors should keep an eye on any recent revisions to analyst forecasts for Kroger. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the business outlook.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To capitalize on this, we've crafted the Zacks Rank, a unique model that incorporates these estimate changes and offers a practical 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.29% lower. Right now, Kroger possesses a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Kroger currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 11.87. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 13.69, so one might conclude that Kroger is trading at a discount comparatively.
One should further note that KR currently holds a PEG ratio of 1.69. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Retail - Supermarkets stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.84 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Retail - Supermarkets industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 211, placing it within the bottom 15% of over 250 industries.
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.
Don't forget to use Zacks.com to keep track of all these stock-moving metrics, and others, in the upcoming trading sessions.
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The Kroger Co. (KR): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).