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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Alphabet, Roche, Amgen, General Electric and Sony

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – February 10, 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: Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) , Roche Holding (RHHBY - Free Report) , Amgen (AMGN - Free Report) , General Electric (GE - Free Report) and Sony .

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Research Reports for Alphabet, Roche and Amgen

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 Alphabet, Roche Holding and Amgen. 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 >>>

Alphabet’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Internet Services industry in the past six months (+21.8% vs. +16.3%). The Zacks analyst believes that Google’s strong focus on innovation of AI techniques and the home automation space should aid business growth in the long term.

Alphabet reported weak fourth-quarter earnings due to declining search advertising growth and lower-than-expected YouTube sales. Also, heavy investment in cloud computing and hardware businesses negatively impacted the results. However, Google’s robust mobile search is a positive.

Notably, it has agreed to acquire Fitbit for roughly $2.1 billion. This deal will likely help the company to accelerate innovation in the wearables category. However, the company’s growing expenses, litigation issues and competition might hurt profitability. 

Shares of Roche have gained +28.7% over the past year against the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry's rise of +13.5%. The Zacks analyst believes that Roche’s dominant position in the breast cancer space continues to boost performance on label expansion of drugs.

Roche’s performance in 2019 was impressive, propelled by solid sales of new drugs. Strong growth of Ocrevus, Perjeta, Tecentriq and Hemlibra countered biosimilar competition for Herceptin, MabThera and Avastin. Particularly, MS drug Ocrevus witnessed strong growth on increased demand.

Also, label expansion of blockbuster immune-oncology drug Tecentriq into additional indications is a positive. The recent Spark acquisition will boost Roche’s presence in the gene therapy space as well. However, most of the legacy drugs are facing biosimilar competition. Additionally, pipeline setbacks are concerns as well.

Amgen’s shares have gained +9.9% over the past three months against the Zacks Biomedical and Genetics industry's rise of +4.7%. The Zacks analyst believes that while Amgen’s growth products like Prolia, Evenity, Repatha, Aimovig, Otezla and biosimilars will drive sales, increasing competition for its legacy products will continue to hurt the same this year.

Amgen boasts of a strong biosimilars portfolio, which can drive long-term growth. Amgen is also progressing with its pipeline while regularly pursuing “external opportunities” such as the acquisition of Otezla and the recently acquired stake in China's BeiGene.

Amgen also expects several important clinical data readouts from its innovative pipeline in 2020. However, pricing and competitive pressure are concerns.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include General Electric and Sony.

Just Released: Zacks’ 7 Best Stocks for Today

Experts extracted 7 stocks from the list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys that has beaten the market more than 2X over with a stunning average gain of +24.7% per year.

These 7 were selected because of their superior potential for immediate breakout.

See these time-sensitive tickers now >>

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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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GE Aerospace (GE) - free report >>

Roche Holding AG (RHHBY) - free report >>

Amgen Inc. (AMGN) - free report >>

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) - free report >>

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