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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Starbucks, Advanced Micro Devices and eBay

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – January 29, 2020 – 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: Apple Inc. (AAPL - Free Report) , Starbucks (SBUX - Free Report) , Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) and eBay (EBAY - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

Apple Posts Great Fiscal Q1; SBUX, AMD, EBAY Also Beat

 Apple Inc. has posted a terrific fiscal Q1 2020 quarter a half hour after Tuesday afternoon's closing bell, with $4.99 per share beating bottom line estimates of $4.54, on revenues of $91.8 billion, easily outpacing the $87.7 billion in the Zacks consensus, and up 9% year over year. Apple has not missed on earnings in nearly four full years.

iPhone sales, in particular, surprised to the upside, bringing in $56 billion from $51.2 billion estimated, up 8% year over year. Wearables also surprised to the upside to $10 billion from the $9.7 billion expected, while Services revenue came in a tad light to $12.7 billion. Gross Margins improved over consensus by 30 basis points to 38.4%. and the company has now stockpiled $207 billion in cash.

Even better, revenue guidance for fiscal Q2 has been bumped up to a range of $63-67 billion, a marked improvement from our expected $62.5 billion. And even though the stock had doubled in the last year to all-time highs, shares continue to climb in the after-market, +2.7% immediately following the earnings release.

Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated Starbucks reported fiscal Q1 2020 earnings after Tuesday's market close, beating on the bottom line by 3 cents to 79 cents per share, on quarterly sales of $7.1 billion which were in-line with the Zacks consensus. The company now counts 18.9 million active members in its reward program. Shares are down a tad on the news, though the company did maintain full-year 2020 guidance.

With Starbucks, however, the story is always in same-store sales, or "comps": Global Comps rose 5% year over year, while in the U.S. they grew 6%. Both figures were above consensus. China comps grew 3%, with 10.2 million customers in China rising 40% year over year. Of course, the recent coronavirus issue is not reflected in these quarterly numbers, so we will see if guidance keeps pace the longer the crisis continues.

Advanced Micro Devices has beaten expectations on its Q4 bottom line by 2 cents to 32 cents per share, on $2.13 billion in revenues which were above the Zacks consensus $2.10 billion and up 50% year over year. This was led by its Computing & Graphics division, which currently accounts for 70% of AMD's sales. However, Q1 revenue guidance was lower than anticipated -- $1.80 billion versus $1.84 originally estimated -- which has helped send shares down 2.5% in late trading Tuesday.

eBay was also able to surpass expectations on both top and bottom lines, also after Tuesday's closing bell: 81 cents per share improved on the 75 cents analysts were looking for, and 71 cents reported in the year-ago quarter. Sales were slightly to the positive as well: $2.82 billion versus $2.81 billion in the Zacks consensus, but still down 2% from a year ago. Q4 Gross Merchandise Guidance fell to $23.3 billion from $23.7 billion.

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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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