Heritage Insurance (HRTG) shares ended the last trading session 7.4% higher at $17.43. The jump came on an impressive volume with a higher-than-average number of shares changing hands in the session. This compares to the stock's 18.3% gain over the past four weeks.

Heritage Insurance is poised to grow on better pricing, increasing top line, expanding margins and solid earnings as well as growing commercial residential business. Heritage Insurance remains focused on augmenting profitability by selective profit-oriented underwriting criteria, rate adequacy, and restricting new business in over-concentrated markets or products. 

The stock has identified the excess and supply (E&S) business as a growth driver and is thus evaluating growth opportunities in more states. Heritage Insurance’s strategy to divert capital toward technology and to segments that have the potential to yield more profits seems prudent.  

This property and casualty insurance holding company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.46 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -2.1%. Revenues are expected to be $213.69 million, up 11.7% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Heritage Insurance, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on HRTG going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Heritage Insurance is part of the Zacks Insurance - Property and Casualty industry. Root, Inc. (ROOT), another stock in the same industry, closed the last trading session 4.4% higher at $125.29. ROOT has returned -20.9% in the past month.

For Root , the consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $0.45. This represents a change of +207.1% from what the company reported a year ago. Root currently has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

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

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