Southern Copper (SCCO) closed at $97.11 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.1% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.02%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.14%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 0.33%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the miner had lost 4.21% lagged the Basic Materials sector's gain of 4.33% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.93%.

The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Southern Copper in its upcoming release. In that report, analysts expect Southern Copper to post earnings of $1.07 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 12.3%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $3.02 billion, down 3.25% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.63 per share and revenue of $12.38 billion, which would represent changes of +6.93% and +8.24%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Southern Copper should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. Therefore, positive revisions in estimates convey analysts' confidence in the business performance and profit potential.

Our research reveals that these estimate alterations are directly linked with the stock price performance in the near future. To capitalize on this, we've crafted the Zacks Rank, a unique model that incorporates these estimate changes and offers a practical rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, stretching from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a noteworthy track record of outperforming, validated by third-party audits, with stocks rated #1 producing an average annual return of +25% since the year 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 1.62% higher. Southern Copper is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Looking at valuation, Southern Copper is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 21.19. This denotes a discount relative to the industry average Forward P/E of 21.81.

One should further note that SCCO currently holds a PEG ratio of 2.52. 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 Mining – Non Ferrous industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.81 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Mining – Non Ferrous industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 44, putting it in the top 18% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. 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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Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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