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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Wells Fargo, IBM, Abbott, Texas Instruments and Praxair

Air Products' (APD) latest deal will see a boost in helium feedstock and addition of two new air separation plants.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL –July 20, 2018 – 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 Wells Fargo WFC, IBM IBM, Abbott ABT, Texas Instruments TXN and Praxair PX.

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Reports for Wells Fargo, IBM and Abbott Labs

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 Wells Fargo (WFC), IBM (IBM) and Abbott (ABT). These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.

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Buy-ranked Wells Fargo’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Major Banks industry over the last three months (+7.6% vs. +1.1%). However, the company possesses a disappointing earnings surprise history, having beaten expectations in only one of the trailing four quarters.

The company’s second-quarter 2018 results were impacted by lower mortgage banking revenues and high expenses. Lower provisions and higher net interest income aided results. Following the sales scandal and other issues, Wells Fargo has been slapped with new sanctions, including a cap on the assets position by the Federal Reserve.

Though lower tax rate, easing of regulations and expansions will likely support the bank’s growth profile, the Zacks analyst thinks the crisis related to the revelation of illegally opening millions of accounts in 2016, auto-lending issues and impact of other malpractices will take some time to alleviate. Nevertheless, the recent 2018 capital plan approval boosts investors' confidence.

Shares of IBM have underperformed the broader market on a year-to-date basis, losing -5.8% vs. the S&P 500’s +5.6% gain. IBM’s second-quarter 2018 top-line benefited from strong demand for z14 Mainframe and Power products. Moreover, improving pre-tax margin and lower share count drove earnings growth. However, the Zacks analyst thinks IBM will find it difficult to sustain the Mainframe momentum in the long haul.

Nevertheless, the company’s improving position in the cloud, security and analytics bodes well. Moreover, accretive acquisitions have expanded IBM’s product portfolio into higher-growth segments, such as cloud computing, AI and Big Data.

The strategic imperatives will take some more time to report meaningful growth and offset weakness in the traditional business. IBM’s ongoing heavily time-consuming business model transition to cloud continues to hurt the stock.

Buy-rankedAbbott’s shares have gained +27.3% over the last year, outperforming the Zacks Medical Products industry, which has gained +12.3% over the same period. In the second quarter 2018, Abbott has once again posted better-than-expected earnings and revenues numbers.

The Zacks analyst likes the strong and consistent performance across all segments by Abbott. Within Structural Heart, worldwide strong uptake of MitraClip therapy improves further following the recent FDA approval of its next-generation version. This apart, synergies from Alere consolidation in the form of revenues from Rapid Diagnostics have been driving growth.

Meanwhile, emerging market performance has been extremely promising. The company has been taking the limelight within Diabetic Care on progress with its FreeStyle Libre. On the flip side, sluggish Vascular business continues to dent growth. However, the FDA approval for XIENCE Sierra coronary stent system as well as a reimbursement approval in Japan should help Abbott to revive the dull Vascular business.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Texas Instruments (TXN) and Praxair (PX).

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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 https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


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International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Abbott Laboratories (ABT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Praxair, Inc. (PX) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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