Wednesday, June 26, 2019

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 JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Duke Energy (DUK). 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 >>>

JPMorgan’s shares have gained +8.2% in the past three months, outperforming the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry’s increase of +3.4%. The bank has an impressive earnings surprise history, having surpassed expectations in three of the trailing four quarters.

The Zacks analyst thinks higher rates, improving loan balance, strong balance sheet (indicated by stress test clearance), opening branches in new markets and focus on strengthening credit card business will support the bank's financials. Expanding its reach into lucrative U.S. healthcare payments market with a deal to acquire InstaMed will aid profitability.

However, dismal mortgage banking performance, mainly due to lower origination volume and increase in competition, is expected to continue hampering fee income growth. The company's significant dependence on capital markets revenues makes us wary and is expected to hurt revenue growth to some extent.

(You can read the full research report on JPMorgan here >>>).

Shares of Wells Fargo have underperformed the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry in the past six months, (+1.4% vs. +11.4%). Its earnings surprise history is satisfactory, having beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the trailing four quarters.

The Zacks analyst thinks Wells Fargo's restructuring activities and higher interest income, aided by loan growth, remain a tailwind. Further, ongoing investment in the businesses to enhance compliance and risk management capability bodes well. Recently, the company also cleared the Fed’s 2019 stress test.

However, Wells Fargo has been slapped with several sanctions, including a cap on its asset growth by the Fed. This is an outcome of the CFPB's dissatisfaction with the bank’s slow progress on fixing risk-management issues. Rising expenses due to pending litigation issues and hike in personnel costs curb bottom-line expansion.

(You can read the full research report on Wells Fargo here >>>).

Duke Energy’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Electric Power industry in the past year, gaining +13.3% vs +12.4%. The Zacks analyst likes Duke Energy’s strong focus on expanding its scale of operations and implementing modern technologies at the company’s facilities.

Heavy investments are made in infrastructure and expansion projects. The company expects to invest about $37 billion in its overall growth projects during the 2019-2023 period. This investment plan will drive earnings base growth in the company’s combined electric and gas businesses by approximately 6%, over the next five years.

However, massive debt levels can turn out to be a major headwind for the company. Currently, Duke Energy’s strategy includes generation of cleaner energy, due to which it is anticipated to incur environmental compliance cost of $2.78 billion for the 2019-2023 period. Such costs may dampen its bottom-line growth.

(You can read the full research report on Duke Energy here >>>).

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include PayPal (PYPL), General Motors (GM) and Norfolk Southern (NSC).

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Mark Vickery
Senior Editor

Note: Sheraz Mian heads the Zacks Equity Research department and is a well-regarded expert of aggregate earnings. He is frequently quoted in the print and electronic media and publishes the weekly Earnings Trends and Earnings Preview reports. If you want an email notification each time Sheraz publishes a new article, please click here>>>