United States Steel (X) closed the most recent trading day at $18.73, moving +0.48% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.97%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 1.88%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.24%.

Coming into today, shares of the steel maker had lost 21.25% in the past month. In that same time, the Basic Materials sector lost 13.23%, while the S&P 500 lost 9.93%.

United States Steel will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, United States Steel is projected to report earnings of $1.93 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 63.99%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.98 billion, down 16.53% from the year-ago period.

X's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $9.89 per share and revenue of $20.9 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -26.63% and +3.07%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for United States Steel. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.35% lower within the past month. United States Steel is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that United States Steel has a Forward P/E ratio of 1.89 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 2.57, so we one might conclude that United States Steel is trading at a discount comparatively.

The Steel - Producers industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 181, which puts it in the bottom 29% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.

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