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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Mastercard, VMware, Sanofi, Twitter and State Street

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – June 7, 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 Mastercard (MA - Free Report) , VMware , Sanofi (SNY - Free Report) , Twitter and State Street (STT - Free Report) .

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

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Research Reports for Mastercard, VMWare and Sanofi

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 Mastercard, VMware and Sanofi. 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 >>>

Strong-Buy ranked Mastercard’s shares have increased 59.3% over the last year, significantly outperforming the Zacks Financial Transaction Services industry’s gain of 36.3% during the same period. The Zacks analyst thinks the company is well placed for growth, given its solid market position, ongoing expansion and digital initiatives plus significant opportunities from the secular shift toward electronic payments.

The buyouts of VocaLink and NuData Security complement the company’s efforts to participate in new payment flows and enhance its safety and security offerings.  The stock has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings being revised upward over the last 60 days. However, escalating costs continue to bother. Also, higher incentives and rewards will put pressure on its bottom line.

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

Shares of Buy-ranked VMware have gained +17.7% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Software industry which is up +16.9% over the same period. VMware reported impressive first-quarter fiscal 2019 results. Both earnings and revenues increased on a year-over-year basis. Strong top-line growth was primarily driven by robust performance from NSX and vSAN product line. Management provided strong guidance for fiscal 2019.

The Zacks analyst likes the fact that VMware has been consistently taking initiatives to diversify its product portfolio to include most of the IT infrastructure. The company’s dominance in SDDC along with expanding customer base in cloud driven by partnerships with the likes of IBM and AWS is positive.

Moreover, continuing enterprise deal wins will drive growth in the long haul. However, heavy spending on R&D may weigh on its margins. Intensifying competition is also a concern.

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

Sanofi’s shares have underperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry year to date, declining -10.6% vs. -4.5%. Sanofi has several new products in its portfolio and candidates in its pipeline that can contribute to long-term growth.

The Zacks analyst is particularly optimistic about sales prospects of Dupixent, which could prove to be an important growth driver. The acquisitions of Ablynx and Bioverativ have strengthened Sanofi’s position in the rare blood disorders market. However, Sanofi’s Diabetes franchise is under significant pressure with key product, Lantus facing increasing competitive pressure at the payor level and the presence of biosimilar competition in several European markets and Japan.

Other headwinds include generic competition for many drugs and slower-than-expected uptake of new products like Praluent. Meanwhile, the performance of the Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare franchises has been soft lately.  Nonetheless, Sanofi expects to return to growth in the second half of 2018.

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

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Twitter and State Street.

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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.


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Sanofi (SNY) - free report >>

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State Street Corporation (STT) - free report >>