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Weight Watchers, Tutor Perini, Nvidia and Micron as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
Read MoreHide Full Article
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – March 9, 2018 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Weight Watchers International Inc. (WTW - Free Report) as the Bull of the Day and Tutor Perini Corporation (TPC - Free Report) as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Nvidia Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) and Micron Technology (MU - Free Report) .
Weight Watchers International Inc. has managed to completely turn around its business over the last 2 years. This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) is now one of the industry leaders in weight loss and wellness.
Weight Watchers is a wellness company and operates weight management programs through its web site and meetings.
Another Beat in the Fourth Quarter
On Feb 27, Weight Watchers reported its fourth quarter 2017 results and beat the Zacks Consensus by 6 cents. Earnings were $0.37 versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.31.
This was the 6th earnings beat in a row.
Revenue rose 17% in the quarter to $312 million. For the full year, revenue gained 12% year-over-year to $1.3 billion.
It also continued to add subscribers at a quick pace. They rose 23% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to 3.2 million subscribers.
Total paid weeks also rose 19% in the quarter and were up 17% year-over-year for the full year.
The company said it saw a strong response to the launch of its WW Freestyle program in December 2017.
Strong Guidance for 2018
The company saw momentum heading into its peak diet season, which is always January of the new year due to New Year resolutions to lose weight and be healthier.
It gave revenue guidance up about 20% to $1.55 billion and earnings per share in the range of $2.40 to $2.70.
That is much more bullish than the Zacks Consensus.
As a result, the analysts have been raising 2018 estimates.
The Zacks Consensus jumped to $2.13 from $1.66 since the earnings report. That's earnings growth of 29% as the company made $1.66 in 2018.
But analysts are also more bullish on 2019 as well as the 2019 Zacks Consensus Estimate jumped to $2.59 from $1.92 in the last month as well. That's another 21.8%.
Tutor Perini Corporation has fallen to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) as it guided under analyst estimates for 2018.
Tutor Perini is a civil, building and specialty construction company that serves commercial and government clients. It executes large, complex projects such as the construction of subways and tunnels and casinos and hotels.
It offers general contracting, pre-construction planning and project management and construction services including site work, concrete forming and placement, steel erection, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).
A Beat in the Fourth Quarter
On Feb 27, Tutor Perini reported fourth quarter and full year 2017 results. It beat the Zacks Consensus by 5 cents, reporting $0.55 versus the consensus of $0.50.
Revenue, however, was flat year-over-year at $1.2 billion in the quarter. It also fell year over year, coming in at $4.8 billion versus $5 billion in 2016.
However, the backlog, which is a key metric for a construction firm, rose 17% as of Dec 31, 2017 to $7.3 billion, up from $6.2 billion at the end of 2016.
New awards and adjustments rose to $1 billion in the fourth quarter compared to $0.8 billion in 2016.
Its Civil segment also continued to garner new awards. It grew its backlog by 54% in 2017 and finished with a hefty 12% operating margin for the year.
And the news continues to be positive in that segment.
Tutor Perini previously announced new first quarter 2018 civil segment awards, including the $1.41 billion Newark Airport Terminal One Design-Build project and a $172 million mechanical project at the Baruch Houses complex in New York.
Why Is Tutor Perini a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell)?
All the news sounds pretty positive out of that earnings report.
Then why is it a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell)?
The Rank is determined by changes in the analyst estimates.
In this case, the analysts have all cut 2018 full year estimates after the company guided under their consensus.
Additional content:
2 Artificial Intelligence Stocks You Should Buy Right Now
After decades of existing solely in science-fiction stories, artificial intelligence technology is finally making a real, everyday impact on the world. Whether we realize it or not, AI is now powering the devices and platforms that we know and love. And this budding technology is only just getting started.
Over the coming years, artificial intelligence has the potential to change the course of humanity forever. Self-driving cars with embedded machine learning will soon hit the streets. Industrial automation will begin improving exponentially, and in-home robotics will become commonplace. But this is only part of the equation.
Indeed, our perception of artificial intelligence’s capabilities probably does not even scratch the surface right now. As AI systems continue to be deployed, the technology itself will learn and adapt—creating possibilities we previously could not imagine.
So how should investors prepare for this next generation of technology? What types of investing strategies are most likely to pay off? To answer these questions, we will look at two buy-ranked stocks that are poised to benefit from AI in their own ways.
Nvidia Corporation
Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) and system on a chip units (SoCs). The Santa Clara, California-based firm’s traditional business focuses on delivering GPUs to the gaming market and SoCs to the mobile computing market.
But Nvidia has exploded over the past two years thanks to the adoption of its technology in several booming new tech industries. In fact, Nvidia is now considered a leading supplier for “smart” vehicles, datacenters, cryptocurrency mining, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving.
Nvidia is one of the purest ways to play the AI revolution. The company’s auto-focused SoCs should make it a leader in autonomous driving, which will be one of the first new major AI-powered markets. Meanwhile, Nvidia-produced chips will likely emerge as the go-to hardware for machine learning platforms.
We are already starting to see this pay off for Nvidia. For example, the company’s main growth catalyst over the past year or so has been its Datacenter segment, which includes its DGX and Tesla products—both of which offer top-of-the-line AI computing power. In its most recent quarter, Nvidia reported Datacenter revenues of $606 million, up about 15% year over year.
Nvidia is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), thanks in part to a strong outlook that led to numerous positive earnings estimate revisions. We now expect the company to witness EPS and revenue growth of 29% in its current fiscal year.
But the Zacks Rank is a one-to-three-month indicator, while Nvidia’s AI focus looks years down the road. Investors should also note that NVDA is expected to improve its bottom line at an annualized rate of 10.3% over the next three to five years.
Micron Technology
Nvidia is definitely the flashiest and most-direct route for investing in artificial intelligence, but Micron presents an opportunity that some investors might not be focusing on right now. Remember, the deployment of AI technology is going to produce massive amounts of data, and all of that new information needs to be stored somewhere. This is where memory specialist like Micron come in.
Micron is already targeting the self-driving car industry with a high-end memory solution that it began shipping last year. The company’s new low-power DDR4 (LPDDR4) product is an automotive-grade storage unit that runs at the highest grade allowed by the LPDDR4 classification.
On top of this new solution, Micron is apparently working to repurpose its GDDR6 memory products, which are typically used in game consoles and graphics cards, for use in autonomous vehicles. Micron’s management believes that it can help car companies achieve the 300GB per second data transfer rate that it expects fully-autonomous cars to need.
MU is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The stock also holds “A” grades in every category of our Style Scores system, including Value and Growth. Micron is trading at just 5x forward earnings, and the company is expected to improve its earnings at an annualized rate of 10% over the next three to five years.
Want more market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!
The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All
Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.
Check back later for our full analysis on URBN’s earnings report!
Want more market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!
Wall Street’s Next Amazon
Zacks EVP Kevin Matras believes this familiar stock has only just begun its climb to become one of the greatest investments of all time. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in pure genius.
Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.
Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer.
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/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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Weight Watchers, Tutor Perini, Nvidia and Micron as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – March 9, 2018 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Weight Watchers International Inc. (WTW - Free Report) as the Bull of the Day and Tutor Perini Corporation (TPC - Free Report) as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Nvidia Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) and Micron Technology (MU - Free Report) .
Here is a synopsis of all four stocks:
Bull of the Day:
Weight Watchers International Inc. has managed to completely turn around its business over the last 2 years. This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) is now one of the industry leaders in weight loss and wellness.
Weight Watchers is a wellness company and operates weight management programs through its web site and meetings.
Another Beat in the Fourth Quarter
On Feb 27, Weight Watchers reported its fourth quarter 2017 results and beat the Zacks Consensus by 6 cents. Earnings were $0.37 versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.31.
This was the 6th earnings beat in a row.
Revenue rose 17% in the quarter to $312 million. For the full year, revenue gained 12% year-over-year to $1.3 billion.
It also continued to add subscribers at a quick pace. They rose 23% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to 3.2 million subscribers.
Total paid weeks also rose 19% in the quarter and were up 17% year-over-year for the full year.
The company said it saw a strong response to the launch of its WW Freestyle program in December 2017.
Strong Guidance for 2018
The company saw momentum heading into its peak diet season, which is always January of the new year due to New Year resolutions to lose weight and be healthier.
It gave revenue guidance up about 20% to $1.55 billion and earnings per share in the range of $2.40 to $2.70.
That is much more bullish than the Zacks Consensus.
As a result, the analysts have been raising 2018 estimates.
The Zacks Consensus jumped to $2.13 from $1.66 since the earnings report. That's earnings growth of 29% as the company made $1.66 in 2018.
But analysts are also more bullish on 2019 as well as the 2019 Zacks Consensus Estimate jumped to $2.59 from $1.92 in the last month as well. That's another 21.8%.
Bear of the Day:
Tutor Perini Corporation has fallen to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) as it guided under analyst estimates for 2018.
Tutor Perini is a civil, building and specialty construction company that serves commercial and government clients. It executes large, complex projects such as the construction of subways and tunnels and casinos and hotels.
It offers general contracting, pre-construction planning and project management and construction services including site work, concrete forming and placement, steel erection, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).
A Beat in the Fourth Quarter
On Feb 27, Tutor Perini reported fourth quarter and full year 2017 results. It beat the Zacks Consensus by 5 cents, reporting $0.55 versus the consensus of $0.50.
Revenue, however, was flat year-over-year at $1.2 billion in the quarter. It also fell year over year, coming in at $4.8 billion versus $5 billion in 2016.
However, the backlog, which is a key metric for a construction firm, rose 17% as of Dec 31, 2017 to $7.3 billion, up from $6.2 billion at the end of 2016.
New awards and adjustments rose to $1 billion in the fourth quarter compared to $0.8 billion in 2016.
Its Civil segment also continued to garner new awards. It grew its backlog by 54% in 2017 and finished with a hefty 12% operating margin for the year.
And the news continues to be positive in that segment.
Tutor Perini previously announced new first quarter 2018 civil segment awards, including the $1.41 billion Newark Airport Terminal One Design-Build project and a $172 million mechanical project at the Baruch Houses complex in New York.
Why Is Tutor Perini a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell)?
All the news sounds pretty positive out of that earnings report.
Then why is it a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell)?
The Rank is determined by changes in the analyst estimates.
In this case, the analysts have all cut 2018 full year estimates after the company guided under their consensus.
Additional content:
2 Artificial Intelligence Stocks You Should Buy Right Now
After decades of existing solely in science-fiction stories, artificial intelligence technology is finally making a real, everyday impact on the world. Whether we realize it or not, AI is now powering the devices and platforms that we know and love. And this budding technology is only just getting started.
Over the coming years, artificial intelligence has the potential to change the course of humanity forever. Self-driving cars with embedded machine learning will soon hit the streets. Industrial automation will begin improving exponentially, and in-home robotics will become commonplace. But this is only part of the equation.
Indeed, our perception of artificial intelligence’s capabilities probably does not even scratch the surface right now. As AI systems continue to be deployed, the technology itself will learn and adapt—creating possibilities we previously could not imagine.
So how should investors prepare for this next generation of technology? What types of investing strategies are most likely to pay off? To answer these questions, we will look at two buy-ranked stocks that are poised to benefit from AI in their own ways.
Nvidia Corporation
Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) and system on a chip units (SoCs). The Santa Clara, California-based firm’s traditional business focuses on delivering GPUs to the gaming market and SoCs to the mobile computing market.
But Nvidia has exploded over the past two years thanks to the adoption of its technology in several booming new tech industries. In fact, Nvidia is now considered a leading supplier for “smart” vehicles, datacenters, cryptocurrency mining, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving.
Nvidia is one of the purest ways to play the AI revolution. The company’s auto-focused SoCs should make it a leader in autonomous driving, which will be one of the first new major AI-powered markets. Meanwhile, Nvidia-produced chips will likely emerge as the go-to hardware for machine learning platforms.
We are already starting to see this pay off for Nvidia. For example, the company’s main growth catalyst over the past year or so has been its Datacenter segment, which includes its DGX and Tesla products—both of which offer top-of-the-line AI computing power. In its most recent quarter, Nvidia reported Datacenter revenues of $606 million, up about 15% year over year.
Nvidia is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), thanks in part to a strong outlook that led to numerous positive earnings estimate revisions. We now expect the company to witness EPS and revenue growth of 29% in its current fiscal year.
But the Zacks Rank is a one-to-three-month indicator, while Nvidia’s AI focus looks years down the road. Investors should also note that NVDA is expected to improve its bottom line at an annualized rate of 10.3% over the next three to five years.
Micron Technology
Nvidia is definitely the flashiest and most-direct route for investing in artificial intelligence, but Micron presents an opportunity that some investors might not be focusing on right now. Remember, the deployment of AI technology is going to produce massive amounts of data, and all of that new information needs to be stored somewhere. This is where memory specialist like Micron come in.
Micron is already targeting the self-driving car industry with a high-end memory solution that it began shipping last year. The company’s new low-power DDR4 (LPDDR4) product is an automotive-grade storage unit that runs at the highest grade allowed by the LPDDR4 classification.
On top of this new solution, Micron is apparently working to repurpose its GDDR6 memory products, which are typically used in game consoles and graphics cards, for use in autonomous vehicles. Micron’s management believes that it can help car companies achieve the 300GB per second data transfer rate that it expects fully-autonomous cars to need.
MU is currently sporting a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The stock also holds “A” grades in every category of our Style Scores system, including Value and Growth. Micron is trading at just 5x forward earnings, and the company is expected to improve its earnings at an annualized rate of 10% over the next three to five years.
Want more market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!
The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All
Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.
See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>
Check back later for our full analysis on URBN’s earnings report!
Want more market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!
Wall Street’s Next Amazon
Zacks EVP Kevin Matras believes this familiar stock has only just begun its climb to become one of the greatest investments of all time. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in pure genius.
Click for details >>
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Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer.
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/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.