Sallie Mae (SLM) closed the most recent trading day at $6.71, moving -1.18% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500’s daily gain of 6%. At the same time, the Dow added 5.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 6.23%.
Coming into today, shares of the student loan company had lost 43.7% in the past month. In that same time, the Finance sector lost 33.35%, while the S&P 500 lost 29.18%.
Investors will be hoping for strength from SLM as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.85, up 150% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $397.76 million, down 1.12% from the prior-year quarter.
SLM’s full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $1.88 per share and revenue of $1.58 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +48.03% and -2.55%, respectively.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for SLM. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company’s business and profitability.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. SLM is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
Digging into valuation, SLM currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 3.62. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 4.2, so we one might conclude that SLM is trading at a discount comparatively.
Meanwhile, SLM’s PEG ratio is currently 0.33. 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. The Financial – Consumer Loans industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 0.4 as of yesterday’s close.
The Financial – Consumer Loans industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 76, putting it in the top 30% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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