Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) closed the most recent trading day at $448.16, moving -1.57% from the previous trading session. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 0.96% for the day. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.94%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 1.18%.

The the stock of drugmaker has fallen by 2.71% in the past month, leading the Medical sector's loss of 3.69% and undershooting the S&P 500's gain of 4.3%.

Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company is predicted to post an EPS of $4.11, indicating a 0.74% growth compared to the equivalent quarter last year. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.68 billion, up 7.83% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $0.05 per share and revenue of $10.74 billion. These totals would mark changes of -99.67% and +8.86%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Vertex Pharmaceuticals presently features a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell).

Looking at valuation, Vertex Pharmaceuticals is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 9820.41. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 22.58, so one might conclude that Vertex Pharmaceuticals is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can also see that VRTX currently has a PEG ratio of 785.63. 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. The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.32 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry is part of the Medical sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 83, placing it within the top 33% of over 250 industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.

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

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