The most recent trading session ended with Blue Bird (BLBD) standing at $33.65, reflecting a -0.77% shift from the previouse trading day's closing. The stock exceeded the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 3.46% for the day. On the other hand, the Dow registered a loss of 2.5%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq decreased by 4.31%.

Shares of the school bus maker witnessed a loss of 0.38% over the previous month, beating the performance of the Auto-Tires-Trucks sector with its loss of 3.56% and the S&P 500's loss of 5.27%.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Blue Bird in its forthcoming earnings report. On that day, Blue Bird is projected to report earnings of $0.96 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 7.87%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $390 million, indicating a 12.74% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

In terms of the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates predict earnings of $4 per share and a revenue of $1.45 billion, indicating changes of +15.61% and +7.92%, respectively, from the former year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Blue Bird. 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. 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, 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Currently, Blue Bird is carrying a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In the context of valuation, Blue Bird is at present trading with a Forward P/E ratio of 7.83. This expresses a discount compared to the average Forward P/E of 8.81 of its industry.

One should further note that BLBD currently holds a PEG ratio of 0.72. 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. The Automotive - Domestic industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.72 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Automotive - Domestic industry is part of the Auto-Tires-Trucks sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 197, positioning it in the bottom 21% of all 250+ industries.

The strength of our individual industry groups is measured by the Zacks Industry Rank, which is calculated based on the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within these groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

To follow BLBD in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.

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

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