Chicago, IL – May 24, 2022 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated UNH, Costco Wholesale Corporation COST, Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO and Sanofi SNY.
Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:
Top Stock Reports for Alphabet, UnitedHealth and Costco
The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Alphabet Inc., UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, and Costco Wholesale Corporation. These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.
You can see all of today's research reports here >>>
Shares of Alphabet have lagged the broader market this year (-21% vs. -16%), but have held up better than the Tech sector (-21% vs. -26.7%). The stock's weakness is a reflection of sentiment shift on faster-growing stocks in a rising rate environment. But the company is well positioned in the long run, given its search dominance, lucrative advertising business and a host of next generation investments.
The Zacks analyst believes that Alphabet's robust cloud division continues to be the key catalyst. Moreover, expanding data centres will continue to bolster its presence in the cloud space. Further, major updates in its search segment are enhancing the search results. Moreover, Google's mobile search is constantly gaining solid traction. Also, strong focus on AI techniques and the home automation space should aid business growth. However, growing litigation issues and the Russia-Ukraine war remain concerns.
(You can read the full research report on Alphabet here >>>)
Shares of UnitedHealth have outperformed the Zacks Medical - HMOs industry over the past year (+18.2% vs. +16.2%) on the back of a strong market position and an attractive core business that continues to be driven by new deals, renewed agreements and expansion of service offerings.
UnitedHealth reported strong first-quarter 2022 results thanks to growth in its business segments. A sturdy balance sheet enables investments and prudent capital deployment through share buybacks and dividends. However, softness in commercial business due to the COVID-induced volatilities persists. Also, rising operating costs are hurting its profits.
(You can read the full research report on UnitedHealth here >>>)
Shares of Costco have outperformed the Zacks Retail - Discount Stores industry over the past year (+8.6% vs. -11.0%). The Zacks analyst believes that being a consumer defensive stock, Costco has been surviving the market turmoil pretty well. The discount retailer's key strengths are strategic investments, a customer-centric approach, merchandise initiatives, and an emphasis on membership growth. These factors have been helping it register impressive sales and earnings numbers.
A favorable product mix, steady store traffic, pricing power and strong liquidity position should help Costco keep outperforming. While it is trading at a premium to its peers, the Zacks analyst believes that the company's long-term growth prospects should help the stock see a solid upside.
(You can read the full research report on Costco here >>>)
Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Cisco Systems, Inc. and Sanofi.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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