This story originally appeared on Zacks

In the latest trading session, Waste Management (WM) closed at $161.94, marking a +0.8% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500’s daily gain of 0.62%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.55%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.03%.

Heading into today, shares of the garbage and recycling hauler had lost 2.28% over the past month, lagging the Business Services sector’s gain of 1.42% and the S&P 500’s gain of 0.87% in that time.

Waste Management will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Waste Management to post earnings of $1.25 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 10.62%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.57 billion, up 12.48% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.84 per share and revenue of $17.81 billion, which would represent changes of +20.1% and +17.06%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Waste Management. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company’s business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Waste Management is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Waste Management has a Forward P/E ratio of 33.44 right now. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry’s average Forward P/E of 32.72.

We can also see that WM currently has a PEG ratio of 2.66. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock’s expected earnings growth rate. WM’s industry had an average PEG ratio of 3.03 as of yesterday’s close.

The Waste Removal Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 89, putting it in the top 36% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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