Freshpet (FRPT) Stock Slides as Market Rises: Facts to Know Before You Trade

In the latest trading session, Freshpet (FRPT) closed at $59.12, marking a -2.51% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.79% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.26%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.52%.

The seller of refrigerated fresh pet food's shares have seen an increase of 22.7% over the last month, surpassing the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 3.46% and the S&P 500's loss of 1.82%.

Analysts and investors alike will be keeping a close eye on the performance of Freshpet in its upcoming earnings disclosure. On that day, Freshpet is projected to report earnings of $0.21 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 36.36%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $292.7 million, up 10.58% from the year-ago period.

Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $1.76 per share and revenue of $1.21 billion, indicating changes of -33.33% and +9.52%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Freshpet. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To exploit this, we've formed the Zacks Rank, a quantitative model that includes these estimate changes and presents a viable 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. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed an unchanged state. Freshpet is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

In terms of valuation, Freshpet is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 34.55. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 14.28, so one might conclude that Freshpet is trading at a premium comparatively.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 198, putting it in the bottom 19% 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.

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Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.

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Freshpet, Inc. (FRPT) : Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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