Morgan Stanley to Buy E-Trade, Q4 Earnings & A New Cheap Strong Buy Stock - Free Lunch

Benjamin Rains Published on February 20, 2020

On today’s episode of Free Lunch here at Zacks, Associate Stock Strategist Ben Rains looks at the Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) and E-Trade merger. We then dive into some quarterly earnings results from the likes of Avis Budget Group (CAR - Free Report) . The episode then closes with a dive into why Everi Holdings Inc. (EVRI - Free Report) is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock right now.

U.S. indexes swung between small gains and losses Thursday morning. This came one day after the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all climbed on Wednesday to put a stop to three straight days of declines, amid coronavirus setbacks.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley announced Thursday that it would buy E-Trade in a $13 billion, all-stock deal. The merger will help reshape the historic investment banking powerhouse, as it adds a firm focused on the average retail investor.

The planned merger will help Morgan Stanley diversify and allow E-Trade to better compete against TD Ameritrade (AMTD - Free Report) and Charles Schwab (SCHW - Free Report) , who announced their own planned merger in November.

On the earnings front, shares of Hyatt Hotels (H - Free Report) , Avis Budget, and Zillow (Z - Free Report) all jumped on strong quarterly results. Looking ahead, Dropbox (DBX - Free Report) , First Solar (FSLR - Free Report) , and others are set to report earnings after the closing bell.

The episode then closes with why Las Vegas-based casino tech firm Everi is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock as it trades under $20 per share.

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