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Zacks.com featured highlights include: Bunge, NOW, Dean Foods, Cooper Tire and Dillard's

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 20, 2018 - Stocks in this week’s article Bunge Limited (BG - Free Report) , NOW Inc. (DNOW - Free Report) , Dean Foods Company , Cooper Tire & Rubber Company and Dillard’s, Inc. (DDS - Free Report) .

5 Stocks in Focus on Recent Broker Upgrades

The Q2 earnings reporting cycle is off to an impressive start. The rosy picture is substantiated by the latest Earnings Outlook. According to the report, of the 48 S&P 500 members that have reported thus far, 89.6% came up with better-than-expected earnings per share and 83.3% outperformed on the revenue front. Moreover, total earnings and revenues for these companies displayed 23% and 10% year-over-year growth, respectively.

What is more heartening is that this bullish picture is likely to continue throughout the earnings season. According to the report, stocks in this highly sought-after group are expected to record top and bottom-line growth of 8.3% and 20.4% respectively.

Given this highly bullish backdrop, investors would like to add outperformers to their portfolios for healthy returns. This is because some earnings beat generally leads to stock price appreciation.

However, the task is far from easy with a plethora of companies present in the market. Moreover, the complexities associated with the stock market make it even more difficult for individual investors to select outperformers in their portfolios in the absence of proper guidance.

This is where brokers are important as they have a lot more information on a company and its prospects than individual investors.  Of the three types of brokers/analysts (sell-side, buy-side and independent) present in the investment world, sell-side analysts are most common. Various brokerage firms employ them to provide unbiased opinion to investors after thorough research. Buy-side analysts are employed by hedge funds, mutual funds etc. while the independent ones simply sell their reports to investors.

Brokers, not only scrutinize the publicly available financial documents, but also attend company conference calls and other presentations. Naturally, it is in the best interest of investors to pay heed to such well-researched information as they aim to generate maximum returns from their portfolio.

Brokers revise their earnings estimates after carefully examining the pros and cons of an event for the concerned stock. Naturally, their stock related actions (upgrade or downgrade) serve as an invaluable guide as far as fixing target price of stock (s) is concerned. In fact, a rating upgrade normally leads to stock price appreciation and vice versa.

The above write-up clearly suggests that by following broker actions, one can arrive at a winning portfolio of stocks. Keeping this in mind, we have designed a screen to shortlist stocks based on improving analyst recommendation and upward revisions to earnings estimates over the last four weeks. Also, since the price/sales ratio is a strong complementary valuation metric in the presence of analyst information, it has been included. The price/sales ratio takes care of the company’s top line, making the strategy foolproof.

For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/312200/5-stocks-in-focus-on-recent-broker-rating-upgrades

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

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Zacks.com created the first and best screening system on the web earning the distinction as the "#1 site for screening stocks" by Money Magazine.  But powerful screening tools is just the start. That is why Zacks created the Screen of the Week to highlight profitable stock picking strategies that investors can actively use.

Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

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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/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


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Dillard's, Inc. (DDS) - free report >>

Bunge Global SA (BG) - free report >>

DNOW Inc. (DNOW) - free report >>