Marathon Petroleum (MPC) ended the recent trading session at $137.56, demonstrating a +1.81% swing from the preceding day's closing price. The stock's change was more than the S&P 500's daily loss of 1.78%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.99%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 2.61%.

Shares of the refiner witnessed a loss of 14.11% over the previous month, trailing the performance of the Oils-Energy sector with its loss of 6.51% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.48%.

The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Marathon Petroleum in its upcoming release. The company's earnings per share (EPS) are projected to be $0.22, reflecting a 92.09% decrease from the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $30.09 billion, down 9.41% from the year-ago period.

For the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.47 per share and a revenue of $123.3 billion, representing changes of -10.94% and -12.19%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Marathon Petroleum. Such recent modifications usually signify the changing landscape of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research reveals that these estimate alterations are directly linked with the stock price performance in the near future. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 3.48% lower within the past month. As of now, Marathon Petroleum holds a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Marathon Petroleum's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 15.95. This indicates a premium in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 15.28.

Meanwhile, MPC's PEG ratio is currently 2.66. Comparable to the widely accepted P/E ratio, the PEG ratio also accounts for the company's projected earnings growth. The Oil and Gas - Refining and Marketing was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.55 at yesterday's closing price.

The Oil and Gas - Refining and Marketing industry is part of the Oils-Energy sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 197, this industry ranks in the bottom 22% of all industries, numbering over 250.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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