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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Home Depot, Abbott, Bristol-Myers, Activision and Marathon

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL –August 22, 2019 – 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: Home Depot (HD - Free Report) , Abbott (ABT - Free Report) , Bristol-Myers (BMY - Free Report) , Activision and Marathon Petroleum (MPC - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Reports for Home Depot, Abbott and Bristol Myers

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features updated research reports on 16 major stocks, including Home Depot, Abbott and Bristol-Myers. These research reports have been hand-picked from roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.

You can see all of today’s research reports here >>>

Home Depot’s shares have gained +21% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Retail Building Products industry’s +19.5% increase. The Zacks analyst thinks that this is attributable to a robust earnings surprise trend recorded for more than five years, which continued in second-quarter fiscal 2019.

Earnings benefited from progress on strategic investments as well as a favorable U.S. consumer backdrop and a steady housing market. Meanwhile, the company’s top line lagged estimates but improved year over year on robust comps performance. Its efforts to provide an interconnected shopping experience to customers, with innovative products and improved productivity, position it for growth.

Despite these gains, lumber price deflation remained a drag on the company’s sales and comps in the fiscal second quarter. Further, it slashed its sales and comps view for fiscal 2019 on lumber price deflation and fears of potential impacts of the newly enacted tariffs.

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

Shares of Abbott have gained +30.2% over the past year, significantly outperforming the Zacks Medical Products industry, which has increased +3.2% over the same period. Abbott exited second quarter 2019 with better-than-expected earnings. However, revenues lagged the estimates.

The Zacks analyst is optimistic about the strong and consistent EPD and Medical Devices performance. The company has been hogging the limelight within Diabetic Care on growth with FreeStyle Libre. This apart, synergies from Alere consolidation in the form of Rapid Diagnostics have been driving growth. Within Structural Heart, worldwide uptake of MitraClip therapy improves further.

Meanwhile, the company’s emerging market performance has been promising. Consequently, Abbott has raised its full-year guidance. On the flip side, sluggish Rhythm Management arm in the United States continues to dent growth. Increasing currency headwind is another downside.

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

Bristol-Myers’ shares have underperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry in the year-to-date period, losing -8.7% vs. -2.1%. The Zacks analyst thinks Bristol-Myers’ lead immuno-oncology drug, Opdivo, continues to drive growth. Label expansion of Opdivo into additional indications should further boost the top line. Empliciti and Sprycel are also performing well.

Bristol-Myers also has presence in other core therapeutic areas, including immunoscience and cardiovascular. Blood thinner drug, Eliquis, is expected to drive further growth, propelled by increased share in the novel oral anticoagulant (NOAC) market.

The impending acquisition of Celgene Corporation will broaden Bristol-Myers’ oncology portfolio with the addition of blockbuster drug, Revlimid. However, pipeline setbacks are a concern. The failure of the part 2 of the Checkmate-227 study was disappointing, given the potential in the NSCLC market.

(You can read the full research report on Bristol-Myers here >>>).

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Activision and Marathon Petroleum.

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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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