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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: NVIDIA, Virtu Financial, Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Pioneer Natural Resources and Paycom Software

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – Feb 26, 2018 – 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 NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) , Virtu Financial, Inc. (VIRT - Free Report) , Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (KLIC - Free Report) , Pioneer Natural Resources Company (PXD - Free Report) and Paycom Software, Inc. (PAYC - Free Report) .

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

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Buy These 5 Stocks with Rising Estimates

There are many things we may consider when choosing stocks for our portfolio.

Depending on our investment horizon, some of these may be short-term factors while others, longer-term.

Depending on our need for cash and risk appetite, we may try to make the most of daily market movements, or hold on in the hopes that the overall financial health/stability of a company will yield higher value in the form of dividends or share price appreciation.

We may also look for exposure to certain industries because stocks belonging to industries with strong growth potential may generate high returns, or stocks of more mature industries that may offer steady dividends.

So our gains are highly individual and depend on our own needs and preferences that we then try to match with what the market has to offer.

Given this backdrop, let us take a look at rising estimates as a factor guiding our investment decision. Estimates move up generally when analysts covering a stock see that the company has the strength in fundamentals to support continued earnings growth. This could mean that it has a good revenue generating model, that the market in which it operates is conducive to such growth and there are one or more other factors such as strong IP, brand value, operating leverage, etc. that can support this growth.

In addition, if the company has a good earnings surprise history, it usually means that the estimates are conservative (likely because management is more conservative) meaning that the chances of positive surprises and consequent share price appreciation are higher.

Here are some Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks that recently posted big earnings surprises and saw positive estimate revisions. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA Corporation is the leading producer of graphics processors and media communications devices in the world. Other than GPUs for gaming, the company’s latest product lineup including its NVIDIA® Tesla® accelerated computing platform, the NVIDIA VoltaGPU platform and the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) support artificial intelligence in the cloud and across a range of devices from automotive to IoT.

Zacks Rank #1

Zacks Industry Rank #27 out of 265

Last EPS Surprise 48.3%

Last 4-quarter average surprise 40.8%

Estimate for current year ending January up 32.6% in the last 60 days

Estimate for next year up 22.2%

Virtu Financial, Inc.

Headquartered in New York, Virtu Financial, Inc. is a financial holding company. The company offers a technology platform through which it provides quotations to buyers and sellers in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income and other securities on exchanges, markets and liquidity pools.

Zacks Rank #1

Zacks Industry Rank #99 out of 265

Last EPS Surprise 69.2%

Last 4-quarter average surprise 18.7%

Estimate for current year ending December up 82.8% in the last 60 days

Estimate for next year up 70.4%

Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc.

Kulicke & Soffa is a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and electronic assembly solutions supporting the global automotive, consumer, communications, computing and industrial segments. Recent acquisitions and product development efforts have further expanded its portfolio and helped it maintain its technology leadership to meet the challenges of packaging and assembling for the next-generation of electronic devices.

Zacks Rank #1

Zacks Industry Rank #125 out of 265

Last EPS Surprise 96.2%

Last 4-quarter average surprise 49.1%

Estimate for current year ending September up 32.0% in the last 60 days

Estimate for next year up 23.7%

Pioneer Natural Resources Company

Pioneer Natural Resources Company is a Texas-based independent exploration and production company delivers industry-leading production and reserve growth through onshore, unconventional, oil and gas resource development in the U.S. The company provides administrative, financial and management support to domestic and foreign subsidiaries that are engaged in exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas liquid as well as in building natural gas reserves.

Zacks Rank #1

Zacks Industry Rank #126 out of 265

Last EPS Surprise 60.5%

Last 4-quarter average surprise 66.9%

Estimate for current year ending December up 61.2% in the last 60 days

Estimate for next year up 40.9%

Paycom Software, Inc.

Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Paycom Software, Inc. has developed a cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software solution that is delivered as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. The solution enables day-to-day functionality along with data analytics that can be leveraged by businesses to manage the complete employment life cycle from recruitment to retirement.

Its HCM solution offers a suite of applications in the areas of talent acquisition, time and labor management, and payroll. It also provides talent management applications, and HR management applications.

Zacks Rank #1

Zacks Industry Rank #217 out of 265

Last EPS Surprise 26.1%

Last 4-quarter average surprise 30.2%

Estimate for current year ending December up 61.8% in the last 60 days

Estimate for next year up 61.9%

Zacks Top 10 Stocks for 2018

In addition to the stocks discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-hold tickers for the entirety of 2018?

Last year's 2017 Zacks Top 10 Stocks portfolio produced double-digit winners, including FMC Corp. and VMware which racked up stellar gains of +67.9% and +61%. Now a brand-new portfolio has been handpicked from over 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank. Don’t miss your chance to get in on these long-term buys.

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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.

Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has nearly tripled the market from 1988 through 2015. Its average gain has been a stellar +26% per year.See these high-potential stocks free >>.

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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.