Tuesday, June 2, 2020

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 Pfizer (PFE), Comcast (CMCSA) and salesforce.com (CRM). 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 >>>

Pfizer’s shares have underperformed the Zacks Large-Cap Pharmaceuticals industry over the past year (-15.4% vs. +10.9%). The Zacks analyst believes that the company’s strong portfolio of new drugs will accelerate growth in 2020 and beyond.

The Consumer Healthcare joint venture with Glaxo, the Array acquisition and the pending merger of Upjohn unit with Mylan, if successful, will make Pfizer a smaller company with a diversified portfolio of innovative drugs and vaccines. The smaller Pfizer should see better revenue growth as the Lyrica LOE cliff will go away.

Pfizer expects continued strong growth of key brands like Ibrance, Inlyta and Eliquis to drive sales in 2020. However, Pfizer expects a significant impact from coronavirus-related business disruption in Q2, which it expects to ease in the second half of 2020. Meanwhile, currency headwinds and pricing pressure are other top-line headwinds.

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

Shares of Comcast have lost -7.9% over the past six months against the Zacks Cable Television industry’s fall of -0.1%. The Zacks analyst believes that Comcast is benefiting from solid high-speed Internet customer wins.

The company’s strategy to provide high-speed Internet at an affordable price plays a pivotal role in improving customer experience. Moreover, increased media consumption and work-from-home wave bode well for Comcast. Growing popularity of Xfinity and Flex products is also a major catalyst. However, Comcast persistently suffers video subscriber attrition due to cord-cutting.

The company’s theme parks are expected to remain shut indefinitely. It expects film results to decline substantially in the second and third quarter due to the rescheduling of Fast and Furious 9 as well as Minions 2 releases in 2021. Moreover, the balance sheet remains significantly leveraged, which is a concern.

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

salesforce’s shares have gained +4.1% over the past three months against the Zacks Computer Software industry’s rise of +10.9%. The Zacks analyst believes that the company has been benefiting from a robust demand environment as customers are undergoing a major digital transformation.

The rapid adoption of its cloud-based solutions is driving demand for its products. Continued deal wins in the international market is another growth driver. Furthermore, Salesforce’s recent acquisition of Tableau positions the company to be a leader in business analytics for actionable results in everything from operations to HR.

However, stiff competition from Oracle and Microsoft is a concern. Besides, increasing investments in international expansions and data centers are an overhang on near-term profitability.  

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

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Costco Wholesale (COST), Accenture (ACN) and BHP Group (BHP).

5 Stocks to Soar Past the Pandemic: In addition to the companies you learned about above, we invite you to learn about 5 cutting-edge stocks that could skyrocket from the exponential increase in demand for “stay at home” technologies. This could be one of the biggest buying opportunities of the decade.

See the 5 high-tech stocks now>>

Sheraz Mian

Director of Research

Note: Sheraz Mian heads the Zacks Equity Research department and is a well-regarded expert of aggregate earnings. He is frequently quoted in the print and electronic media and publishes the weekly Earnings Trends and Earnings Preview reports. If you want an email notification each time Sheraz publishes a new article, please click here>>>