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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Union Pacific, Alibaba, GlaxoSmithKline, eBay and Welltower

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 27, 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 Union Pacific (UNP - Free Report) , Alibaba (BABA - Free Report) , GlaxoSmithKline (GSK - Free Report) , eBay (EBAY - Free Report) and Welltower .

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Research Reports for Union Pacific, Alibaba and GlaxoSmithKline

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 11 major stocks, including Union Pacific, Alibaba and GlaxoSmithKline. 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 >>>

Union Pacific’s shares have outperformed its industry as well as fellow railroad operator Kansas City Southern over the last three months. While the company gained +12%, the industry it belongs to and Kansas City Southern have rallied +7.2% and 1.5%, respectively, in the same period. Ushering in further good news, the company's board of directors approved a 10% hike in its quarterly dividend payout in November, 2017.

Also, Union Pacific’s efforts to cut costs to drive its bottom line are impressive. Strong performances of the company's intermodal and industrial products units, so far this year, also raise optimism in the stock. However, the company's high debt levels are a potent threat. Declining automotive volumes due to sluggish vehicle production in the United States are added concerns.

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

Shares of Alibaba have outperformed the Zacks Electronic Commerce industry, on a year-to-date basis, gaining +116.2% vs. +63.6%. The company has delivered strong fiscal second-quarter results driven by robust growth in core e-commerce business. Other drivers include strong mobile and international strength.

The Zacks analyst likes Alibaba’s strong core e-commerce business, its continued efforts to develop new products, international growth opportunities, strong financial position and growing cloud computing services. However, macro headwinds, continued investments and increasing competition from Tencent Holdings and Baidu remain the overhangs.

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

GlaxoSmithKline's shares have underperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry over the year-to-date period, losing -9% versus the industry’s +14.8% increase. Glaxo should continue to see strong performance in its Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines units. The Zacks analyst likes the company’s efforts to develop its pipeline.

Performance of new products has been encouraging. Recent FDA approval for two key pipeline candidates -- Shingrix and Trelegy Ellipta -- was a major boost. However, persistent challenges like stiff competition, genericization and pricing pressure have been impacting the company’s performance. In particular, pricing dynamics and competitive pressure are hurting sales of its top-selling drug Advair.

Meanwhile, Advair is expected to face generic competition next year, which will further hurt sales. The slowdown in sales of the Consumer Healthcare unit this year is also a concern. Estimate movement has been mixed ahead of Q3 earnings release. The company has a positive record of earnings surprises in recent quarters.

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

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include eBay and Welltower.

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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 http://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.