Medical Properties (MPW) ended the recent trading session at $5.36, demonstrating a +1.52% swing from the preceding day's closing price. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.79% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 0.78%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.64%.

The the stock of health care real estate investment trust has fallen by 10.05% in the past month, lagging the Finance sector's loss of 2.86% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.56%.

The upcoming earnings release of Medical Properties will be of great interest to investors. In that report, analysts expect Medical Properties to post earnings of $0.15 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 37.5%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $235.83 million, down 13.08% from the year-ago period.

Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $0.62 per share and revenue of $971.91 million, indicating changes of -22.5% and -2.37%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

It's also important for investors to be aware of any recent modifications to analyst estimates for Medical Properties. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, which varies between #1 (Strong Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), carries an impressive track record of exceeding expectations, confirmed by external audits, with stocks at #1 delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has shifted 1.61% upward. Medical Properties is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Medical Properties has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.53 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 9.71, so one might conclude that Medical Properties is trading at a discount comparatively.

The REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry is part of the Finance sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 172, which puts it in the bottom 31% 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.

Ensure to harness Zacks.com to stay updated with all these stock-shifting metrics, among others, in the next trading sessions.

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Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (MPW) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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