Ashford Hospitality Trust (AHT) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Ashford Hospitality Trust (AHT) closed at $5.16 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.18% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.16%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.42%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.03%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the hotel owner had gained 10.15% over the past month. This has outpaced the Finance sector's gain of 1.62% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.89% in that time.
AHT will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be May 2, 2019. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.28, unchanged from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $353.87 million, up 3.41% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $1.31 per share and revenue of $1.49 billion, which would represent changes of +3.97% and +3.82%, respectively, from the prior year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for AHT should also be noted by investors. 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.
Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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.
The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 9.32% higher. AHT is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
In terms of valuation, AHT is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 3.91. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 15.04.
Also, we should mention that AHT has a PEG ratio of 0.78. 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. AHT's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.77 as of yesterday's close.
The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 170, which puts it in the bottom 34% 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.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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