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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: United Technologies, Netflix, Schlumberger, Lennar and Paychex

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – March 2, 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 United Technologies , Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) , Schlumberger (SLB - Free Report) , Lennar (LEN - Free Report) and Paychex (PAYX - 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:

Top Stock Reports for United Technologies, Netflix and Schlumberger

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 12 major stocks, including United Technologies, Netflix and Schlumberger. 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 >>>

United Technologies’ shares have gained 13.3% over the last three months, outperforming the Zacks Diversified Operations industry, which has lost -3.2% over the same period. United Technologies serves various end-markets, which allows it to remain profitable even during tough economic times.

The company has offered bullish guidance for 2018 on healthy demand trends and is likely to deliver sustainable earnings growth in future with Rockwell merger. However, macroeconomic conditions and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates affect the company’s bottom-line growth.

A disruption in deliveries from suppliers, capacity constraints, production disruptions, price changes, or decreased availability of raw materials or commodities is likely to have an adverse effect on its ability to meet delivery schedules, thereby increasing its operating costs.

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

Shares of Netflix have increased 54.5% over the last three months, significantly outperforming the Zacks Broadcast Radio and Television industry’s gain of 22% during the same period. The company’s efforts to attract viewers through investing in more regional programming are leading to robust addition of international subscribers.

The company remains confident of adding more subscribers as the trend of binge viewing is catching up fast. Netflix now has 117.58 million subscribers globally. We believe continuing subscriber addition and expanding content portfolio are the key catalysts that will help Netflix to sustain growth going forward.

However, increasing market spends and higher investments on original/acquired content will continue to hurt profitability, at least in the near term. Rising competition is also a major concern.

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

Schlumberger’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Oil and Gas - Field Services industry over the past three months, gaining 7.7% vs -4.3%. Schlumberger is the largest oilfield services player in the world with presence in every energy market across the world. Also, in all the operating business segments, the company is among the top players.

The firm has been banking on growing hydraulic fracturing work in the North American land market. Schlumberger’s consistent efforts toward strengthening technologies helped it serve complex oilfield services projects globally. The company is also expected to generate significant cashflow from the Palliser Block project where it is assisting Torxen Energy in setting up more than 1,600 oil wells.

However, since 2015, Schlumberger’s long-term debt load increased considerably. Moreover, the company’s cash balance declined 45% year-over-year in 2017, reflecting significant balance sheet weakness.

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

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Lennar and Paychex.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

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See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>

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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