For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – April 5, 2010 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Hasbro (HAS) as the Bull of the Day and Badger Meter Inc. (BMI) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on ADP (ADP), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Wal-Mart (WMT).
Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=5506
Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:
We are upgrading our recommendation on Hasbro (HAS) to Outperform. The company’s fourth quarter earnings were well ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate, reflecting a better-than-expected growth in revenue.
Most of its product lines, especially its movie-based toys, experienced strong demand. Its strong product line-up and strategic association with Discovery, Universal Pictures and Electronic Arts promise good things for investors. Additionally, the company’s meaningful international growth opportunity and its expenses management efforts augur well.
However, the slow economic recovery should limit significant top line expansion in the near term. Also, since the company generates a substantial amount of revenues from outside the U.S., its results are sensitive to foreign exchange fluctuations.
We are downgrading our recommendation on Badger Meter Inc. (BMI) to Underperform from Neutral as we anticipate it to perform well below the broader market.
Badger Meter’s vulnerability to macroeconomic conditions as well as delayed customer orders is adversely affecting its top-line growth. The company recorded a 16.6% year-over-year reduction in total revenues during the fourth quarter of 2009.
Moreover, intense competition from other well-established players, heavy dependence on key suppliers and exposure to foreign currency fluctuations undermine the company’s future growth prospects and profitability.
Latest Posts on the Zacks Analyst Blog:
Initial Jobless Claims Still Falling
In total there are now 10.693 million people getting unemployment benefits, up 259,000 from last week and up 34.3% from 7.964 million a year ago. The duration of unemployment numbers will be one of the more important details of the jobs main course tomorrow.
Still, overall the report is encouraging, and if the appetizer for the jobs data meal was yesterday’s ADP (ADP) report, think of this as the salad course. Personally, I would have liked to have sent the appetizer back to the chef, as it was not very tasty, coming in at a decline of 23,000 rather than the increase of 40,000 that the consensus expectations had ordered.
The salad is just fine — nothing spectacular, but at least it is not wilted. The poor first course and the just OK second course should temper expectations that the main course is going to be spectacularly good.
Sure it’s going to have some good ingredients in it: fresh snapback from the February snow storms, plus lots of Census jobs. However, while those were not in the ADP report, there are a lot of ingredients that are shared between the two recipes.
The jobs data really is the key to the recovery. More people working will do wonders for budget deficits at the federal, state and local level. Not only will people go out and start to do more shopping at J.C. Penney (JCP) and Wal-Mart (WMT), but when they do they also pay sales tax, which will help alleviate the budget crunches at the state and local levels.
People who are working end up paying income taxes because they have some income, rather than receive federal benefits such as extended unemployment claims, or increasingly food stamps. Those extended benefits are a very useful part of the Stimulus effort; in fact, the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] scores them as among the highest impact on a dollar spent per job saved or created basis, far higher than any tax cut (although reductions in the employer side of the payroll tax for incremental jobs is also highly effective on a dollar-per-job basis).
Get the full analysis of all these stocks by going to http://at.zacks.com/?id=5507.
About the Bull and Bear of the Day
Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.
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