BAC - Bank of America Corporation
| Previous close | 34.85 |
| Open | 34.77 |
| Bid | 34.04 x 4000 |
| Ask | 34.05 x 2200 |
| Day's range | 34.01 - 34.83 |
| 52-week range | 26.21 - 35.72 |
| Volume | 15,922,393 |
| Avg. volume | 43,433,431 |
| Market cap | 301.136B |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 1.63 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 12.39 |
| EPS (TTM) | 2.75 |
| Earnings date | 14 Apr 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 0.72 (2.07%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 04 Mar 2020 |
| 1y target est | 37.36 |
- Yahoo Finance UK
HSBC 'running hard to stand still' with restructure
Analysts and investors react cautiously to HSBC's plans to pivot away from the US and Europe, and towards Asia.
- Bloomberg
Mexico’s Finance Chief Confident of 2020 Economy Turnaround
(Bloomberg) -- Having suffered the worst economic performance in a decade last year, Mexican Finance Minister Arturo Herrera sees reasons to be more optimistic about Latin America’s second-largest economy in 2020.In his first sit-down interview with English-language media this year, Herrera says that after almost a decade of expansion since the global financial crisis, last year’s 0.1% contraction was more natural and in line with disappointing economic activity worldwide. Now, things are looking better.His argument goes: inflation and debt levels are in check, the peso is stable, and the troubled state oil company known as Pemex has halted a production decline. The main boost for the country comes from the ratification of the reworked North American free trade agreement.“The Mexican economy’s performance is very different with this agreement,” he told Bloomberg News at the National Palace in Mexico City on Monday. “This is one of the great advantages we have now.”Production chains may invest more in North America based on the certainty created by the treaty, known as USMCA, especially as competitors in Asia are beset by trade wars and a health crisis, he said.Read More: USMCA Ratification More Relief Than Opportunity For MexicoHerrera’s ministry has even kept its 2% growth forecast for the year, although he won’t say whether that will change when it reports a preliminary budget proposal to congress in April.His optimism isn’t fully shared by Mexico watchers. Economists have been steadily reducing the country’s 2020 growth estimates to an average of just 1% from 1.7% six months ago, with Bank of America Corp. even forecasting an expansion as little as 0.5%.Inflation, RatesAn area that is likely to provide more stimulus is monetary policy. Subdued inflation and peso stability mean Mexico “clearly” has room to keep cutting interest rates, the minister said.“I’m not the only one saying it. It’s something that’s said by the Western Hemisphere director of the International Monetary Fund,” Herrera said.Banco de Mexico has been lowering its policy rate since August as declining oil output and uncertainty over President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s policies stalled the economy. Even after reducing the key rate by 1.25 percentage point since August, Mexico has one of the highest inflation-adjusted interest rates in the world.Analysts expect the bank to cut borrowing costs by another half percentage point in the rest of 2020, ending the year at 6.5%.Alejandro Werner, the Western Hemisphere director of the IMF, said last month that Mexico has “significant space” to keep cutting interest rates to bolster growth, noting that other Latin American countries have reduced borrowing costs recently.Read More: Zero-Growth Year Is Price AMLO Pays for Mexican ‘Transformation’Inflation ended 2019 at 2.83%, the second-lowest December rate in the 2000s. It has rebounded slightly to 3.24% last month, but is still within the central bank’s target range of 3%, plus or minus one percentage point.The strength of the Mexican peso, which on Monday reached its highest intraday level in almost a year and a half, is explained by factors including the government’s fiscal responsibility and the nation’s relatively high interest rates, Herrera said. The peso ended Monday trading with a 0.1% loss to 18.5561 per dollar at 4 p.m.He also reiterated the government’s commitment to a “stable” and “flexible” currency.“It’s very risky for somebody to start playing with the exchange rate policy,” he said. “It has cost Mexico a lot of work to understand this and we’re very respectful.”To contact the reporters on this story: Nacha Cattan in Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.net;Eric Martin in Mexico City at emartin21@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Cancel at dcancel@bloomberg.net, ;Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Matthew Bristow, Jiyeun LeeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Warren Buffett's Berkshire adds Kroger stock, scales back on Wells Fargo, Goldman and BofA
Warren Buffett's holding company has added a familiar name, and scaled back on a few others.
- Zacks
Why Is Bank of America (BAC) Up 0.6% Since Last Earnings Report?
Bank of America (BAC) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.
- Zacks
Bank Stock Roundup: Covid-19 Virus, Restructuring Efforts, JPM, WFC in Focus
Restructuring efforts and use of technology to enhance revenues have been the main themes for banks over the last five trading days amid concerns related to impact of Covid-19 virus globally.
- Business Wire
Bank of America Awards $750,000 to Advance Hemisfair Redevelopment
The Hemisfair Conservancy and Bank of America, together with San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, today announced the largest grant at Hemisfair to date.
- Business Wire
Bank of America Introduces Financial Life Benefits, Delivering the Industry’s Most Comprehensive Set of Solutions and Guidance to Employees of Corporate Clients
Bank of America today announced the launch of Financial Life BenefitsTM, a suite of workplace benefits and solutions designed to help meet the near- and long-term financial needs of our corporate clients’ employees. Through this offering, Bank of America brings together traditional financial benefits – including 401(k)1, health care savings2, equity compensation1, and non-qualified deferred compensation plans1 – with a corporate employee banking and investing offering that can help address employees’ everyday needs through spending and savings solutions from Bank of America and investing solutions powered by Merrill.
- Zacks
BofA (BAC) CEO Moynihan's 2019 Compensation Remains Stable
Bank of America's (BAC) chief executive officer Brian T. Moynihan's total compensation package for 2019 remains unrevised at the 2018 level of $26.5 million.
- Bloomberg
Billionaire Agnellis Are Tempted by a Sack of French Cash
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The billionaire Agnelli family is being tempted with the possibility of exiting the reinsurance industry with a sack of cash. Who wouldn’t succumb? The only question is whether the $9 billion approach for their PartnerRe business can be turned into a real deal, and what to do with the proceeds if a transaction happens.French mutual insurer Covea has approached the Agnelli-controlled investment company, Milan-listed Exor NV, about buying Partner Re, Bloomberg News revealed this weekend. At the mooted price, a transaction would be at a roughly 50% premium to the business’s last reported tangible book value of $6.1 billion, but less than 20% above its valuation in Exor’s last annual results. That suggests the final price could be higher. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch reckon $10 billion would be fairer, noting that European peers trade at a 70% premium to tangible book value.Such an exit would be a good outcome for the Agnellis. PartnerRe was acquired for $6.9 billion in early 2016. It’s hard to see how holding on could deliver the same payback in the near future. This is a specialized industry and PartnerRe’s future surely lies in teaming up within the sector, rather than staying within a diversified investment company.Whether Covea is the appropriate partner remains to be seen. It’s not hard to guess what motivated its approach. Covea is a mutual insurer with stacks of excess capital and no shareholders to distribute it to. M&A is the natural means to put that financial resource to work. This partly drove a failed takeover approach for reinsurer Scor SE in 2018 — along with the risk that Scor, capitalized at 6.9 billion euros ($7.6 billion), might itself do a deal with PartnerRe.Covea has no shareholders to object to it overpaying, but its board and regulators need to be sure of the strategic and financial logic of a jumbo acquisition. Its core business is conventional general insurance. Reinsurance would bring diversification, but also a fresh test for Chief Executive Officer Thierry Derez.In normal times, Derez might get the benefit of the doubt. But the Scor debacle has left unfinished business. Scor is suing him for breach of trust (he was on the target’s board prior to the approach). The French insurance regulator has reportedly criticized the very public row. It has written to Covea seeking improvements to its governance, according to Les Echos. Covea rejects Scor’s allegations as groundless.The French suitor’s ability to close any deal unchallenged is open to doubt, though. An all-share tie-up with Scor remains the obvious alternative for PartnerRe. That would be consistent with Exor’s strategy to make the group a more meaningful rival to the likes of industry giants Munich Re and Swiss Re AG.Still, a generous cash deal would be preferable. It would be more likely to narrow the discount at which Exor shares trade relative to underlying asset value — slightly more than 20%, based on BAML estimates for 2019. The impending special dividend on Exor’s shares in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV following the carmaker’s combination with Peugeot SA won’t on its own move the group into a net cash position from its current 2.4 billion euros of net debt.Markets may be expensive right now but that won’t last forever. Building a war chest for opportunistic dealmaking in other sectors makes sense for the Agnellis.To contact the author of this story: Chris Hughes at chughes89@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. He previously worked for Reuters Breakingviews, as well as the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Fed’s Leveraged-Lending Stress Test Is a Start to Easing Fears
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Ask just about anyone on Wall Street what worries them the most, and corporate leverage will most likely rank among their top fears. In August, Bank of America Corp. surveyed 224 fund managers with a combined $553 billion in assets and found that a record 50% of them were concerned about excessive debt on company balance sheets. It’s not hard to see why that’s the case. For one, a growing number of well-known U.S. companies are now rated triple-B, potentially just one economic downturn from becoming junk and facing a spike in borrowing costs. But at least that’s more or less out in the open. More ominous is the explosive growth in the market for leveraged loans and collateralized loan obligations. Global regulators haven’t found a way to quantify the threat they may pose to the financial system in a worst-case scenario. At least not yet.The Federal Reserve is apparently ready to take a stab at measuring that risk itself. It announced last week that as part of its annual stress tests, Wall Street’s biggest banks must prove they can withstand a “wave of corporate sector defaults” and outflows from leveraged-loan funds that cause steep enough price declines to flow through into CLO tranches. The scenario anticipates that such a sell-off would also spill over into other types of risky credit and private equity.“This year’s stress test will help us evaluate how large banks perform during a severe recession and give us increased information on how leveraged loans and collateralized loan obligations may respond,” Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, said in a statement. The banks have until April 6 to submit their plans; the results will come out at the end of June.The message from the Fed to Wall Street is quite clear: Leveraged lending is seen as a big risk and now is the time to look carefully through your books to make sure you haven’t missed any potential exposures. The central bank seems to believe it staved off a recession with its three quarter-point interest-rate cuts last year. Chair Jerome Powell’s recent refrain is that the economy and monetary policy are now in a “good place.”In September, though, he warned that the elevated level of corporate debt is “a real issue” and could serve as an “amplifier” of any slowdown. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren dissented on lowering rates last year in part because of financial stability concerns around “near-record equity prices and corporate leverage.” The special focus on leveraged loans in the 2020 stress tests can likely trace its origins back to these remarks.Yet I wouldn’t hold my breath for significant revelations from this exercise. For one thing, announcing that leveraged lending will be a crucial component of this year’s test creates the appearance that the Fed is tipping off Wall Street in advance of the exam. This kind of transparency is just one of the ways in which the Fed softened its process: It also eliminated the “qualitative objection,” which gave the Fed the power to fail even well-capitalized banks if it judged that their handle on risk wasn’t adequate. Overall, the fact that the Fed’s stress tests are arguably easier than before minimizes how much markets might learn from this go-around. It’s also worth remembering the findings from the Financial Stability Board’s December report on the leveraged-lending market. Here’s what the global regulatory organization that comprises central banks, finance ministries, international bodies and regulatory authorities managed to conclude about stress-testing credit-risk exposure at banks:“There are inherent difficulties in modelling what the impact of a severe yet plausible scenario could be on complex debt products that have been originated under loose credit conditions. Furthermore, the cross-border dimension of the risks may not be fully covered by the stress tests, as interconnectedness is challenging to assess for individual jurisdictions.”As I wrote at the time, this does not inspire much confidence. Quarles just so happens to be the chair of the stability board in addition to the Fed’s regulation chief. It’s a smart move for the Fed to test whether banks can withstand a global recession in which the markets for corporate debt and commercial real estate are hit especially hard. But as the board said, it’s hard to accurately model for the worst case given the unprecedented nature of credit markets in the post-financial crisis era.There’s no harm in trying, though. The stability board report provided interesting figures on banks’ exposure to leveraged loans and CLOs relative to their capital adequacy ratios, for instance. Any additional insight into the leveraged-lending market, and just how intertwined it is with the biggest U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., would go a long way toward confirming or assuaging investors’ fears. It’s the unknown that’s scary.To contact the author of this story: Brian Chappatta at bchappatta1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brian Chappatta is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering debt markets. He previously covered bonds for Bloomberg News. He is also a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Coronavirus Hits Oil's Weakest Credits Hardest
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It is possible that even now, after five years of bruising re-education, Saudi Arabia harbors dreams of finally overcoming the U.S. fracking industry’s cockroach-like grip on life.Unfortunately for Riyadh, coronavirus threatens its own health, so instead of letting rip, it’s talking about further supply cuts. Unfortunately for the frackers, such talk — absent full-throated endorsement from Moscow — still leaves Nymex oil futures pegged at just $50 a barrel. Make no mistake, virus or no, there is a deep malaise in the oil market.Immunity is bolstered best with a healthy (or healthy-ish) balance sheet. On Thursday evening, Parsley Energy Inc. priced eight-year bonds at 4.125%. As exploration and production companies go, Parsley’s leverage counts as relatively OK. It ended September with net debt of just under 1.9 times trailing Ebitda, and Fitch Ratings has it just inside investment grade. It is taking the opportunity to raise longer-dated money with a lower coupon to take out 2024 paper costing 6.25% a year, albeit paying a hefty premium of almost 5% of par to do so.Parsley is a relative rarity. Energy’s high-yield market is largely closed, with the option-adjusted spread on the ICE BofA U.S. High Yield Energy Index back above 700 basis points. The lowest-rated energy credits are utter pariahs, with CCC-rated bonds sporting an average spread of almost 2,000 basis points, according to CreditSights, versus an ex-energy average of about 860 points, which seems almost welcoming by comparison.This split between the sort-of-haves and the most-definitely-have-nots is reflected in stocks too. I wrote back in November about how leverage had become a differentiating factor in an E&P sector coming under increasing pressure. The new year’s bout of fear and loathing has exacerbated that. Here’s how the sector has done, split by levels of indebtedness(1):The message from the stock market, and Parsley’s opportunism, is clear: Any fracker wanting to survive 2020 had best ditch the freewheeling habits of yesteryear and hunker down.(1) The four groups are: as follows. Very high leverage (net debt >3x Ebitda) comprising Antero Resources, Chesapeake Energy, Comstock Resources, EQT, Laredo Petroleum, Oasis Petroleum, Range Resources. High leverage (2-3 x Ebitda) comprising Apache, Callon Petroleum, CNX Resources, Matador Resources, QEP Resources, Southwestern Energy. Moderate leverage (1-2x Ebitda) comprising Berry Petroleum, Centennial Resource Development, Cimarex Energy, Continental Resources, Diamondback Energy, Diversified Oil & Gas, Jagged Peak Energy, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil, Northern Oil and Gas, Parsley Energy, PDC Energy, SM Energy, SRC Energy, Talos Energy, W&T Offshore, WPX Energy. Low leverage (To contact the author of this story: Liam Denning at ldenning1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy, mining and commodities. He previously was editor of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column and wrote for the Financial Times' Lex column. He was also an investment banker.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2020 Bloomberg L.P.Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
- Zacks
JPMorgan (JPM) Intends to Resume Offering FHA-Backed Loans
JPMorgan's (JPM) plan to restart providing FHA-backed mortgage loans is likely to support interest income and offer cross-selling opportunities.
- Yahoo Finance
Fed Vice Chairman: Interest rates in 'good place' despite 'notable risks'
Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles said he is "optimistic" about the economic outlook despite Coronavirus risks. He also floated possible bank changes to bank rules.
- Business Wire
Bank of America Business Advantage 360 Gives Small Businesses the Ability to View Data From Third-Party Business Applications in Award-Winning Digital Dashboard
On the first anniversary of the launch of Business Advantage 360, its one-stop digital dashboard for business owners, Bank of America today announced that it can now integrate data from key third-party business applications to provide a more complete financial picture for small businesses.
- Zacks
JPMorgan Likely to Face Lawsuit for Precious Metal Spoofing
JPMorgan's (JPM) precious metals desk is being probed by U.S. regulators for almost two years for market manipulations.
- Bloomberg
Alphabet Misses Wall Street Sales Targets
(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc. reported quarterly revenue that missed analysts’ estimates on waning search advertising growth, while new sales numbers on YouTube also disappointed Wall Street. The stock fell more than 4% in extended trading.Overall revenue, excluding payments to partners, was $37.6 billion in the fourth quarter, less than analysts’ projections of $38.4 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Advertising revenue in the quarter rose 17%, slower than the 20% year-over-year growth from in the same quarter a year earlier.YouTube ads generated sales of $15.1 billion in 2019, up 36% from the previous year, the company said in a statement. That excludes paid subscriptions, but it’s still well below what many analysts estimated. Google has consistently said YouTube is a major source of growth, but hadn’t broken out details until Monday.Google’s search ad business, while still hugely profitable, isn’t expanding as quickly because of the proliferation of other ways to reach huge audiences online, including social media, e-commerce and video. The company’s search unit posted a 17% gain in sales in the key holiday quarter, but that was outpaced by 25% growth in Facebook Inc.’s ad business. Amazon.com Inc.’s Other division, which is mostly advertising, saw sales surge 41%. That business is much smaller than Google’s, but it has grabbed more lucrative shopping-related searches in recent years.In online video, YouTube is an important asset for Google. But that division spent much of 2019 responding to criticism that it doesn’t do enough to limit the spread of toxic videos and misinformation. YouTube was also forced to end targeted ads on clips that are made for kids, a large and growing audience.YouTube’s Year Under Fire Shows No Signs of Letting UpDuring a conference call following the results, Ross Sandler, an analyst at Barclays, asked why YouTube growth decelerated in the fourth quarter. Justin Post, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, estimated that YouTube generates $7 to $8 in revenue per user and asked if there was room for improvement.Alphabet also reported cloud results for the first time. Sales, including a service that rents computing power and G Suite internet-based productivity software, totaled $2.6 billion, up 53% from a year earlier. Google is pouring money into this business to try to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft Corp. Under cloud boss Thomas Kurian, the internet giant is also making acquisitions, buying four companies in the booming sector last year.Until now, cloud and YouTube had been bundled together in an opaque Google metric known as Other Revenue.While it increased disclosure on YouTube and cloud, the company also stopped sharing information on how many times people click on Google ads and how much Google charged for each of those clicks. Those statistics used to be closely followed, but had become less important in recent years.(Corrects story by removing erroneous reference to Traffic Acquisition Costs in sixth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Gerrit De Vynck in New York at gdevynck@bloomberg.net;Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alistair Barr at abarr18@bloomberg.net, Jillian WardFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Fintech's Consolidation Creates Investment Opportunities
Fintech's Consolidation Creates Investment Opportunities
- Bloomberg
Snap Analysts Say Bull Case Is Intact Despite Revenue Miss
(Bloomberg) -- Snap Inc. shares tumbled after the social-media company’s revenue missed expectations, snapping six quarters of beats. The Snapchat parent also gave a first-quarter sales outlook that was seen as light.Analysts broadly described the quarter as mixed, noting strength in metrics like user growth and engagement. Because of these offsetting factors, Barclays wrote that the size of the share-price drop seemed “a bit harsh.” UBS wrote that the quarter “contained enough mixed messages to cause a negative reaction in the shares that seemed rational short-term.”Brokers also pointed to recent gains in Snap shares, a sign of elevated expectations going into the print. “While the report was generally in-line,” Susquehanna wrote, “it wasn’t good enough to sustain the stock momentum.”Shares sank as much as 7.3%. This comes after a rally of nearly 35% between a December low and the close of trading on Tuesday.Here’s what analysts are saying about the results:BofA, Justin Post“User growth continues to accelerate, while company execution has seemingly turned the corner.” The valuation is high, but Snap “has a clear path ahead to better monetize its highly engaged and growing user base.”Buy rating, $22 price target.UBS, Eric SheridanThe results “contained enough mixed messages to cause a negative reaction in the shares that seemed rational short-term.” Snap needs upside in both revenue and user growth to sustain the momentum in the stock.Sees continued “strong performance in user growth/engagement, yield from platform investments & improved benefits of scale pointing toward profitability.”Buy, $24 price target.Barclays, Ross SandlerA sell-off of this magnitude “seems a bit harsh,” but is “not surprising” given the valuation.Would use the decline as a buying opportunity as Snap “is one of the few names with a strong possibility of accelerating growth and profit inflection in 2020.”Overweight, price target raised by $1 to $23.Jefferies, Brent ThillThe revenue miss and deceleration in North American revenue “should not cause major concern,” as the company’s underlying fundamentals “remain very healthy.” The first-quarter outlook implies an acceleration in user growth, and “we think they can nearly double” average revenue per user (ARPU) over a three-year period.However, these results come in the wake of similarly disappointing numbers from both Facebook and Alphabet, “raising questions about the durability of the U.S. ad market.”Buy, $21 price target.Susquehanna Financial Group, Shyam PatilExpectations were high going into the news, and “while the report was generally in-line, it wasn’t good enough to sustain the stock momentum.”But the company “continues to progress on its turnaround,” with strong daily active user growth and improving monetization. “We like the recent improvements to execution across the business.”Neutral, price target to $17 from $16.Citi, Jason BazinetSnap “continued to deliver strong sequential global DAU growth,” though the quarter was mixed overall.Neutral rating, “as we believe there could be top-line revenue risks on Street 2021 estimates due to ARPU growth pressures.”JMP Securities, Ronald Josey“Expectations were elevated into what we view as a solid result.”The deceleration in revenue was related to a shorter holiday shopping season, a factor that “had an outsized impact on results, due partly to Snap’s greater reliance on brand advertising.” Because of this, the results are “more of a one-time event,” and revenue growth should re-accelerate in the first-quarter.“Snap’s ad business and platform overall is significantly better positioned to continue closing its ARPU gap relative to Twitter and Facebook.”Market outperform, $22 price target. “We are buyers, especially on any pullback in shares.”RBC Capital Markets, Mark MahaneySnap was “was more materially impacted by [a] shortened holiday season” than either Facebook or Alphabet given “less supply constraints.”The company is “still at an inflection point,” so the stock is “still investable.”Outperform, $21 price target.Cowen, John BlackledgeBoth the results and the first-quarter outlook were mixed, though engagement was a bright spot. “The platform continues to reap the rewards of app improvements over the past several quarters, including the rework of the Android application. These improvements have helped to drive better engagement and user retention.”Outperform, $20 price target.What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:“Snap’s below-consensus 1Q guidance shows it’s still figuring out revenue scaling as user growth stays strong.”There is “room for upside surprises for the year,” and user growth can help the company overcome the outlook.\- Analyst Jitendra Waral\- Click here for the research(Updates to market open, adds comments from BofA, UBS and Barclays)To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Will Daley, Scott SchnipperFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Netflix Gains After Analysts See Low Risk in Disney Results
(Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co. reported strong subscriber numbers for its Disney+ streaming service, but it’ not the competitive risk that it may appear for Netflix Inc., analysts said on Wednesday.While there were both bullish and bearish takeaways for Netflix in Disney’s report, the “positive outweighs the negative,” wrote BofA analyst Nat Schindler, who reiterated his buy rating and $426 price target on the stock. Even with this high-profile competition, “Netflix remains the OTT staple,” the firm wrote, referring to over-the-top streaming services.Shares of Netflix rose 1.7% on Wednesday, while Disney fell as much as 2.2%. Since Disney+ debuted in November, Netflix shares have easily outperformed Disney.“It is clear Disney+ engagement trails that of Netflix and this reinforces our view that Disney+ is not a substitute,” BofA wrote, noting that viewing hours per Disney+ subscriber “widely trail those of Netflix.” This engagement disparity could continue as Disney’s most high-profile streaming releases for this year -- including Marvel programs and the second season of “The Mandalorian” -- are “clustered” in the fall and fourth quarter of 2020. “This limits Netflix’s competition from a content perspective,” BofA wrote.BofA added that Disney’s international rollout of Hulu wasn’t likely to start until 2021. This is “an incremental positive” for Netflix’s international expansion, given “Disney’s limited ability to offer a bundle overseas for now.”That view was echoed by Raymond James, which reiterated its strong buy rating on Netflix shares. While Disney+ is off to an “exemplary start” and there will be more debate about the risk Netflix faces from competition, “we prefer to take a page from ‘Frozen’ and ‘Let it go,’” analyst Justin Patterson wrote to clients. He added that Disney’s results reinforce the idea that streaming services can co-exist, and that traditional cable is where things are struggling.In a sign of how streaming has been dominating over “linear” television, Bloomberg Intelligence recently estimated that the fourth quarter may end with 1.7 million pay-TV “defections.” Cord-cutting losses “have jumped over 50% from prior quarter averages,” in part due to the rise of new streaming services, analyst Geetha Ranganathan wrote in late January.(Updates to market open in third paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Scott Schnipper, Steven FrommFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Splunk, Baozun, Bank of America, Intel and IBM as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
Splunk, Baozun, Bank of America, Intel and IBM as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
- Investing.com
Bank of America Stock Rises 3%
Investing.com - Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Stock rose by 3.01% to trade at 34.62 by 11:15 (16:15 GMT) on Wednesday on the NYSE exchange.
- Business Wire
Bank of America Surpasses Five-Year Goal to Hire 10,000 Veterans
This month, Bank of America surpassed its five-year goal to hire 10,000 veterans, national guard and reservists. This hiring goal was set to address the unique challenges military personnel face in finding employment after service. The company remains committed to continuing to attract, develop and retain military talent. In addition to this milestone, Bank of America will celebrate 100 years of supporting the military later this year – a tradition that started in July 1920 when the company began providing financial services and products for service members and their families at the Fort Sam Houston base in Texas. Bank of America currently operates overseas military banking facilities in 10 countries, including 62 financial centers and 274 ATMs.
- Zacks
Why Bank of America (BAC) is a Top Dividend Stock for Your Portfolio
Dividends are one of the best benefits to being a shareholder, but finding a great dividend stock is no easy task. Does Bank of America (BAC) have what it takes? Let's find out.
- Yahoo Finance
Fed to pare back 'Volcker rule' to expand bank investment in venture capital, securitized loans
The Fed is proposing changes to a key post-crisis regulation known as the "Volcker rule" that would expand bank activity in venture capital funding and securitized loan markets.
