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

On today’s episode of Free Lunch here at Zacks, Associate Stock Strategist Ben Rains looks at the Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and E-Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) merger. We then dive into some quarterly earnings results from the likes of Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ:CAR) . The episode then closes with a dive into why Everi Holdings Inc. (NYSE:EVRI) 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 (NASDAQ:AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) , who announced their own planned merger in November.

On the earnings front, shares of Hyatt Hotels (NYSE:H) , Avis Budget, and Zillow (NASDAQ:Z) all jumped on strong quarterly results. Looking ahead, Dropbox (NASDAQ:DBX) , First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) , 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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