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American Airlines (AAL) Stock Drops Despite Market Gains: Important Facts to Note

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In the latest trading session, American Airlines (AAL - Free Report) closed at $14.52, marking a -0.82% move from the previous day. The stock trailed the S&P 500, which registered a daily gain of 0.56%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 0.42%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.83%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's largest airline had gained 9.25% over the past month, outpacing the Transportation sector's gain of 4.93% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.11% in that time.

Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of American Airlines in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company is predicted to post an EPS of $0.41, indicating a 41.38% growth compared to the equivalent quarter last year. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $13.16 billion, up 0.73% from the prior-year quarter.

Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $1.49 per share and revenue of $53.68 billion, indicating changes of -43.77% and +1.7%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for American Airlines. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 0.21% increase. American Airlines is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, American Airlines currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 9.8. This denotes a discount relative to the industry's average Forward P/E of 10.04.

Investors should also note that AAL has a PEG ratio of 0.26 right now. 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. As of the close of trade yesterday, the Transportation - Airline industry held an average PEG ratio of 1.17.

The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 26, putting it in the top 11% of all 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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