Thursday, May 9, 2024

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 The Procter & Gamble Company (PG), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG). 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 >>>

Procter & Gamble’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Soap and Cleaning Materials industry over the past year (+9.9% vs. +8.3%). The company has been gaining from robust pricing and a favorable mix, along with strength across segments.

Procter & Gamble has been focused on productivity and cost-saving plans to boost margins. This led to bottom line beating the consensus mark for the seventh consecutive quarter in third-quarter fiscal 2024. Consequently, PG has provided an optimistic fiscal 2024 view.

However, the company has been witnessing supply-chain issues, higher SG&A costs, higher transportation costs and rising inflation. Its significant international presence exposes it to foreign currency risks, which acts as a headwind.

(You can read the full research report on Procter & Gamble here >>>)

Shares Verizon of have outperformed the Zacks Wireless National industry over the past year (+12.8% vs. +11.7%). The company has reported modest first-quarter results with the bottom line beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate but the top line missing the same. The deployment of a cloud-native, container-based, virtualized architecture has led to increased flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency across its network.

Verizon is offering various mix and match pricing in both wireless and home broadband plans, which has led to solid client additions. Focus on emerging growth services like cloud, security and professional services will likely reap long-term benefits.

However, lower wireline and wireless equipment revenues are major concerns. Huge promotional expenses and lucrative discounts to expand customer base are weighing on margins. High capital expenditure for continuous network upgrade and fiber deployment is a headwind. A muted guidance for 2024 is worrisome.

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

Intuitive Surgical’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Medical - Instruments industry over the past year (+25.7% vs. +4.0%). The company ended the first quarter on a positive note, beating estimates on both counts. Revenues improved year over year. The strong performance is likely to continue in 2024 on the back of continued growth in the company’s da Vinci procedure volume, coupled with strong Ion procedure growth.

ISRG’s initiative to increase the pricing of procedures should also continue to aid in sales growth in 2024.Improving procedure volume along with better system placements and services across all markets will drive top-line growth this year. Launch of da Vinci SP in Europe and da Vinci 5 in U.S. market should drive system placements higher.

However, ongoing supply chain constraints, although easing, are likely to hurt the availability of devices. Labor shortage in hospitals will likely act as a headwind to procedure growth in 2024.

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

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), Hess Corporation (HES) and The Allstate Corporation (ALL).

Director of Research

Sheraz Mian

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>>>