BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ) closed at $57.93, marking a +1.28% move from the previous day. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 2.44%. At the same time, the Dow added 1.65%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.28%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the wholesale membership warehouse operator had lost 14.14% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Discretionary sector's loss of 14.06% and the S&P 500's loss of 9.65% in that time.

BJ's Wholesale Club will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect BJ's Wholesale Club to post earnings of $0.74 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 5.71%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.4 billion, up 11.46% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $3.18 per share and revenue of $16.82 billion. These totals would mark changes of +2.91% and +9.01%, respectively, from last year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for BJ's Wholesale Club should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.08% lower. BJ's Wholesale Club is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that BJ's Wholesale Club has a Forward P/E ratio of 18 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 10.69, so we one might conclude that BJ's Wholesale Club is trading at a premium comparatively.

Meanwhile, BJ's PEG ratio is currently 1.8. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. BJ's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.22 as of yesterday's close.

The Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Discretionary sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 102, which puts it in the top 40% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.