The latest trading session saw Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) ending at $503.20, denoting a -1.37% adjustment from its last day's close. The stock's change was less than the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.08%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.08%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.52%.

Shares of the drugmaker witnessed a gain of 6.21% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Medical sector with its loss of 1.03% and the S&P 500's loss of 7.33%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in its upcoming release. In that report, analysts expect Vertex Pharmaceuticals to post earnings of $4.19 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 11.97%. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $2.81 billion, indicating a 4.56% growth compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.

VRTX's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $17.65 per share and revenue of $11.85 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4102.38% and +7.56%, respectively.

Furthermore, it would be beneficial for investors to monitor any recent shifts in analyst projections for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

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, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.19% higher. Vertex Pharmaceuticals currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Vertex Pharmaceuticals currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 28.9. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 19.05.

We can also see that VRTX currently has a PEG ratio of 1.24. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. As of the close of trade yesterday, the Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry held an average PEG ratio of 1.56.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 75, putting it in the top 30% 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.

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Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (VRTX) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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