Century Aluminum (CENX): Today's Weak On High Volume Stock
Trade-Ideas LLC identified
(
) as a weak on high relative volume candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Century Aluminum as such a stock due to the following factors:
- CENX has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $16.0 million.
- CENX has traded 246,616 shares today.
- CENX is trading at 2.26 times the normal volume for the stock at this time of day.
- CENX is trading at a new low 4.06% below yesterday's close.
'Weak on High Relative Volume' stocks are worth watching because major volume moves tend to indicate underlying activity such as material stock news, analyst downgrades, insider selling, selling from 'superinvestors,' or that hedge funds and traders are piling out of a stock ahead of a catalyst. Regardless of the impetus behind the price and volume action, when a stock moves with strength and volume it can indicate the start of a new trend on which early investors can capitalize (or avoid losses by trimming weak positions). In the event of a well-timed trading opportunity, combining technical indicators with fundamental trends and a disciplined trading methodology should help you take the first steps towards investment success.
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More details on CENX:
Century Aluminum Company, together with its subsidiaries, produces primary aluminum in the United States and Iceland. It produces standard grade and value-added primary aluminum products; and carbon products, such as anodes and cathodes. Currently there are no analysts that rate Century Aluminum a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 3 rate it a hold.
The average volume for Century Aluminum has been 2.1 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Century Aluminum has a market cap of $700.0 million and is part of the basic materials sector and metals & mining industry. The stock has a beta of 0.25 and a short float of 24.2% with 5.25 days to cover. Shares are up 67.2% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.
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Analysis:
rates Century Aluminum as a
. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its disappointing return on equity, poor profit margins, weak operating cash flow, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share.
Highlights from the ratings report include:
- Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Metals & Mining industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, CENTURY ALUMINUM CO underperformed against that of the industry average and is significantly less than that of the S&P 500.
- The gross profit margin for CENTURY ALUMINUM CO is currently extremely low, coming in at 5.71%. It has decreased significantly from the same period last year.
- Net operating cash flow has significantly decreased to $14.90 million or 87.18% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing to the industry average, the firm's growth rate is much lower.
- The share price of CENTURY ALUMINUM CO has not done very well: it is down 15.74% and has underperformed the S&P 500, in part reflecting the company's sharply declining earnings per share when compared to the year-earlier quarter. The fact that the stock is now selling for less than others in its industry in relation to its current earnings is not reason enough to justify a buy rating at this time.
- CENTURY ALUMINUM CO has experienced a steep decline in earnings per share in the most recent quarter in comparison to its performance from the same quarter a year ago. The company has reported a trend of declining earnings per share over the past year. However, the consensus estimate suggests that this trend should reverse in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, CENTURY ALUMINUM CO swung to a loss, reporting -$0.78 versus $1.13 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings (-$0.42 versus -$0.78).
- You can view the full Century Aluminum Ratings Report.
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