The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Caterpillar, Netflix, Philip Morris International, Altria And Verizon

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – February 15, 2019 – 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:Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) , Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM) , Altria (NYSE:MO) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) .

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Analyst Reports for Caterpillar, Netflix and Philip Morris

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 Caterpillar, Netflix and Philip Morris International. 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 >>>

Caterpillar’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Construction and Mining industry in the last six months (0.9% vs. -0.4%). Caterpillar’s fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and revenues improved on a year-over-year basis driven by continued strength in many of its end markets and incessant focus on cost control. However, it missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate on both counts.

For 2019, the company anticipates EPS to be $11.75-$12.75, projecting year-over-year growth of 5-14%. Material cost inflation due to the impact of tariffs and increased transportation costs will affect the company's margins. Further, the slowdown in China remains a concern.

Nevertheless, improving demand across most of its other markets, pricing actions and cost cutting efforts will aid results. Additional investments in expanded offerings and services, and digital initiatives like e-commerce will also drive growth.

Shares of Netflix have gained +25.5% over the past year, outperforming the Zacks Broadcast Radio and Television industry’s gain of 6.1% during the same period. Netflix is benefiting from an increasing subscriber base, which is primarily driven by a solid content portfolio. The company will reportedly stream the much-anticipated Breaking Bad movie, before AMC, which reflects growing appeal of the streaming platform.

This is also helping Netflix counter competition from the likes of Hulu, HBO, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime video and YouTube. Moreover, partnerships with telcos like Telefonica (MC:TEF) in Spain, KDDI in Japan, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and T-Mobile in the United States, and Sky in the U.K. and Germany are expected to drive subscriber addition. Notably, Netflix’s decision to raise prices is likely to boost top-line growth and offset increasing marketing expenditure.

Buy-ranked Philip Morris’ shares have lost -5.2% in the last three months, outperforming the Zacks Tobacco industry's decline of -6.6%. The company is gaining from strong pricing strategies. In fact, favorable pricing has played an important role in boosting revenues for a while. Also, this drove the company’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2018, wherein it delivered the third and the fourth straight quarter of top- and bottom-line surprises, respectively.

The company is also undertaking initiatives to strengthen RRPs, which are rapidly gaining market popularity. In fact, it has introduced new versions of IQOS to capture market share. Additionally, the company provided favorable view for 2019.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Altria and Verizon.

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