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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Costco, Coca-Cola, Linde, Verizon and Chubb
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For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – November 28, 2023 – 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: Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST - Free Report) , The Coca-Cola Co. (KO - Free Report) , Linde plc (LIN - Free Report) , Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ - Free Report) and Chubb Ltd. (CB - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:
Top Analyst Reports for Costco, Coca-Cola and Linde
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 Costco Wholesale Corp., The Coca-Cola Co. and Linde plc. These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.
Costco shares have outperformed the Zacks Retail - Discount Stores industry over the past year (+12.2% vs. -0.3%). The company being a consumer defensive stock has been surviving the market turmoil pretty well. The discount retailer’s key strengths are strategic investments, a customer-centric approach, merchandise initiatives, and an emphasis on membership growth.
These factors have been helping it register decent sales and earnings numbers. This outlook reflects Costco’s ability to navigate the challenging operating environment, generate solid sales, and register high membership renewal rates.
A favorable product mix, steady store traffic, pricing power and strong liquidity position should help Costco keep outperforming. While trading at a premium to its peers, its long-term growth prospects should help the stock see a solid upside.
Shares of Coca-Cola have modestly lagged the shares of rival Pepsico this year (-7.9% vs. -6.4%), but have underperformed the broader market in a big way (-7.9% vs. +19.6% for the S&P 500 index).
The company continues to witness inflationary cost pressures, related to higher commodity and material costs, as well as higher marketing investments.
Nevertheless, Coca-Cola continues to witness positive business trends as reflected by its robust surprise history. KO’s sales and earnings beat estimates for the third consecutive quarter in third-quarter 2023. Earnings and sales also improved year over year.
Strong revenue growth across most of its operating segments aided by improved price/mix and increased concentrate sales boosted the results. It is poised to gain from innovations and accelerating digital investments. It provided an upbeat guidance for 2023.
Linde shares have outperformed the Zacks Chemical - Specialty industry over the past year (+24.4% vs. +11.6%). The company is making the world more productive by the day with its wide range of applications for its industrial gases. Linde’s primary products in industrial gases include oxygen, which is used as life support in hospitals.
The company has long-term contracts with on-site customers backed by minimum purchase requirements, thereby securing stable cashflows. In the profitable industrial gas market, the merger of Praxair and Linde has created an efficient player with considerable size advantages.
However, increasing competition for new projects in emerging markets is concerning. The company faces vulnerability due to economic growth slowdown, potentially impacting industrial gas demand. Linde's history of consistently offering lower dividend yields compared to the composite stocks belonging to the sector concerns income-oriented investors.
Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +6.2 average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +46.4%, +49.5% and +55.2% per year. Today you can access their live picks without cost or obligation.
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 https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Costco, Coca-Cola, Linde, Verizon and Chubb
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – November 28, 2023 – 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: Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST - Free Report) , The Coca-Cola Co. (KO - Free Report) , Linde plc (LIN - Free Report) , Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ - Free Report) and Chubb Ltd. (CB - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:
Top Analyst Reports for Costco, Coca-Cola and Linde
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 Costco Wholesale Corp., The Coca-Cola Co. and Linde plc. 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 >>>
Costco shares have outperformed the Zacks Retail - Discount Stores industry over the past year (+12.2% vs. -0.3%). The company being a consumer defensive stock has been surviving the market turmoil pretty well. The discount retailer’s key strengths are strategic investments, a customer-centric approach, merchandise initiatives, and an emphasis on membership growth.
These factors have been helping it register decent sales and earnings numbers. This outlook reflects Costco’s ability to navigate the challenging operating environment, generate solid sales, and register high membership renewal rates.
A favorable product mix, steady store traffic, pricing power and strong liquidity position should help Costco keep outperforming. While trading at a premium to its peers, its long-term growth prospects should help the stock see a solid upside.
(You can read the full research reprt on Costco here >>>)
Shares of Coca-Cola have modestly lagged the shares of rival Pepsico this year (-7.9% vs. -6.4%), but have underperformed the broader market in a big way (-7.9% vs. +19.6% for the S&P 500 index).
The company continues to witness inflationary cost pressures, related to higher commodity and material costs, as well as higher marketing investments.
Nevertheless, Coca-Cola continues to witness positive business trends as reflected by its robust surprise history. KO’s sales and earnings beat estimates for the third consecutive quarter in third-quarter 2023. Earnings and sales also improved year over year.
Strong revenue growth across most of its operating segments aided by improved price/mix and increased concentrate sales boosted the results. It is poised to gain from innovations and accelerating digital investments. It provided an upbeat guidance for 2023.
(You can read the full research report on Coca-Cola here >>>)
Linde shares have outperformed the Zacks Chemical - Specialty industry over the past year (+24.4% vs. +11.6%). The company is making the world more productive by the day with its wide range of applications for its industrial gases. Linde’s primary products in industrial gases include oxygen, which is used as life support in hospitals.
The company has long-term contracts with on-site customers backed by minimum purchase requirements, thereby securing stable cashflows. In the profitable industrial gas market, the merger of Praxair and Linde has created an efficient player with considerable size advantages.
However, increasing competition for new projects in emerging markets is concerning. The company faces vulnerability due to economic growth slowdown, potentially impacting industrial gas demand. Linde's history of consistently offering lower dividend yields compared to the composite stocks belonging to the sector concerns income-oriented investors.
(You can read the full research report on Linde here >>>)
Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Verizon Communications Inc. and Chubb Ltd.
Why Haven’t You Looked at Zacks' Top Stocks?
Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +6.2 average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +46.4%, +49.5% and +55.2% per year. Today you can access their live picks without cost or obligation.
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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 https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.