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Nice (NICE) Rises Yet Lags Behind Market: Some Facts Worth Knowing

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In the latest trading session, Nice (NICE - Free Report) closed at $152.62, marking a +0.01% move from the previous day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.79%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a gain of 0.78%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq increased by 0.64%.

Shares of the software company witnessed a gain of 5.53% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Computer and Technology sector with its loss of 4.81% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.56%.

The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Nice in its upcoming release. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.84, up 10.08% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $699.39 million, up 6.08% from the year-ago period.

NICE's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $12.23 per share and revenue of $2.93 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +9.98% and +7%, respectively.

It's also important for investors to be aware of any recent modifications to analyst estimates for Nice. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. Consequently, upward revisions in estimates express analysts' positivity towards the company's business operations and its ability to generate profits.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. 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.

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. Nice presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Nice currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 12.48. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 25.02, which means Nice is trading at a discount to the group.

One should further note that NICE currently holds a PEG ratio of 0.86. 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. By the end of yesterday's trading, the Internet - Software industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.85.

The Internet - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 91, positioning it in the top 37% 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 follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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