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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Csra, Amazon, Microsoft and ServiceNow

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 20, 2017 – 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 Csra Inc. (NYSE:Free Report), Amazon (Nasdaq:(AMZN - Free Report)  Free Report), Microsoft (Nasdaq:(MSFT - Free Report)  Free Report) and ServiceNow (NYSE:(NOW - Free Report)  Free Report).

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

CSRA Signs Agreement to Buy Praxis Engineering

Csra Inc.(NYSE: Free Report) recently announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Praxis Engineering Technologies Inc, a developer of intelligent mission applications, for $235 million in cash.

Praxis Engineering looks after the practical applications of engineering technologies for mission critical solutions and has an employee base of almost 350 people. The acquisition is anticipated to prove beneficial for intelligence community customers.

This combination will accelerate the adoption of new age technologies as customers upgrade their applications. CSRA’s top line is also expected to benefit from the addition of Praxis’ solutions to its portfolio, which will also increase the customer base of the company.

Notably, CSRA announced this takeover around three months after the completion of its acquisition of NES in July 2017, the first since it went public.

The addition of NES is anticipated to improve CSRA’s expertise in defense telecom, infrastructure and applications architecture as well as implementation services.

Frequent Contract Wins: A Boon

CSRA’s solid domain knowledge and expertise in next-generation IT services are helping it win new contracts on a regular basis.

Most recently, the company won a $24.5 million worth Scientific and Technical Support (STS) contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Notably, CSRA had won all the prior versions of the contract in which the company will be assisting the EPA Office of Water (OW) Engineering and Analysis Division.

Prior to that, CSRA won a $34.6 million cloud-based contract from the US Navy. Per this blanket purchase agreement, CSRA will serve the Navy’s Science and Technology (S&T) community with cloud migration services to Amazon’s (Nasdaq:(AMZN - Free Report) Free Report) AWS and Microsoft’s (Nasdaq:(MSFT - Free Report) Free Report) Azure.

In early September, the company won a massive $2.4 billion Greenway contract via its 79% shareholding joint venture — Eagle Alliance. Also, in August, it secured a $115 million contract from the EPA Office of Environmental Information (OEI).

We believe that the company’s own solutions enhanced by the tuck-in acquisitions discussed above will help it to win new contracts going forward, thereby improving its top line. Moreover, improving federal spending and partnerships with the likes of ServiceNow (NYSE:(NOW - Free Report) Free Report), Microsoft and Red Hat are major tailwinds for CSRA.

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Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1 Stock of the Day pick for free.

About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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