Analyst Projections in Review for Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS)

Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) currently has an Average Broker Rating of 2.92. The ABR rank within the industry stands at 175. This number is based on the 9 sell-side firms polled by Zacks.  

Each brokerage research report carries with it some form of recommendation. The brokerage firms may use different lingo for their rating systems (like saying Outperform instead of Buy), but they can all be properly sorted into our 5 level classification system that is now the industry standard. Each of the 5 classifications has a value associated with it to help compute the ABR. 

As the name implies the ABR will show you the Average of Brokerage Recommendations on a given stock. The benefit is that you quickly get a snapshot of where Wall Street stands on a stock without having to read a mountain of research reports.

Broker recommendations are made by brokerage firms (for example, JP Morgan) and are not an outright recommendation to buy or sell a share, but instead give an indication of how the broker thinks the company will perform relative to its sector. Their recommendations are issued over a particular period of time. The recommendations provided in the Research Centre are shown on a 75 day rolling basis. Each brokerage firm has its own way of rating that may make it difficult to compare broker recommendations between the brokerage houses.

For example, at one brokerage “buy” may be the strongest recommendation, while at another “buy” could be second to a “strong buy” rating. The second-highest ratings also have a number of different other names: “accumulate”, “outperform”, “moderate buy” or “overweight”.

Analysts on a consensus basis are expecting that the stock will reach $52.71 within the year.

As many veteran investors have already seen, market movements are extremely hard to accurately predict. Financial news outlets are always producing headlines and offering predictions for future market performance. Sometimes the predictions are right, and sometimes the predictions are wrong. Investors may have a hard time separating fact from fiction when it comes to bullish and bearish sentiment. Adjusting the portfolio based strictly on headlines can be tempting for the amateur investor. Filtering out the noise and focusing on the pertinent data can help keep the individual focused and on track. Straying from the plan and basing investment decisions on news headlines may lead to portfolio confusion down the road. Crunching the numbers and paying attention to the important economic data can greatly help the investor see through the smoke when markets get muddled.

Most recently Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) posted quarterly earnings of $0.64 which compared to the sell-side estimates of 0.64. The stock’s 12-month trailing earnings per share stands at $2.4. Shares have moved $9.09 over the past month and more recently, $0.57 over the past week heading into the earnings announcement. There are 9 analyst projections that were taken into consideration from respected brokerage firms.

Research analysts are predicting that Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) will report earnings of $0.66 per share when the firm issues their next quarterly report. This is the consensus earnings per share number according to data from Zack’s Research.

Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) closed the last session at $53.14 and sees an average of 460951.25 shares trade hands in each session. The 52-week low of the stock stands at $37.05 while the current level stands at 79.34% of the 52-week High-Low range. Looking further out we can see that the stock has moved 3.32% over the past 12 weeks and -2.1% year to date.

As we move closer towards the end of the year, investors may be undertaking a portfolio review. Reviewing trades over the past six months, investors should be able to see what has worked and what has not. There might be some stocks that have outperformed the market, and there might be some underperformers as well. Focusing on what has worked so far this year may help provide a clearer picture for future moves. Pinpointing what went wrong can also help the investor see which areas of the portfolio need improvement. If the stock market continues on to reach new heights, investors might be looking to lock in some profits before making the next big trade.

2 analysts rate Webster Financial Corporation a Buy or Strong Buy, which is 22.22% of all the analyst ratings.

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