For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – April 3, 2012 – 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 HSBC Bank (HBC),
Avon Products (AVP), Groupon
(GRPN), Symantec Corp. (SYMC) and Intel
Corp. (INTC).
Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the
free Profit from the Pros newsletter:
http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513
Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst
Blog:
New Quarter, New Expectations
Hardly anyone expects stocks to sustain the impressive momentum
from the first quarter as a new quarter gets underway. But few
expected the market to do as well as it did in the first three
months of the year either, when a combination of improving domestic
economic data and fading European fears helped improve risk
appetites.
Driving the market’s near-term trajectory will be a heavy
schedule of economic data in this holiday-shortened week, starting
with the official Chinese PMI reading, released over the
weekend.
The official Chinese PMI reading turned out to be better than
expected at 53.1, up from February’s 51.0 reading. This contradicts
of the private-sector PMI reading from HSBC Bank
(HBC) released last week showing the factory sector in
contractionary territory. Apparently the HSBC survey is more geared
towards small and medium-sized export-centric firms that are facing
some difficulties in accessing bank credit due to tight lending
standards, while the official PMI survey more closely tracks larger
firms.
The disconnect between the two data points makes it difficult to
firm handle on the country’s manufacturing sector. But it
nevertheless lowers the odds of a sharp drop in Chinese output.
Beyond today’s spotlight, the focus the rest of this week will
be the labor market, with March’s non-farm payroll report coming
out Friday morning. Since the market will be closed that day in
observance of Good Friday, we will have to wait till Monday to get
investors’ reaction to the jobs report.
The expectation is for another 200K reading for total gains and
a bit higher reading for private-sector jobs. With weekly jobless
claims in the 350K vicinity, the March expectation seems
reasonable. But a number of analysts have been casting doubts over
the recent run of positive labor market readings on seasonality
grounds. Their contention is that this year’s unusually mild winter
contributed to the job gains over the last three months. It will be
interesting to see if a positive March jobs reading will end that
debate.
In corporate news, Avon Products (AVP) is
rejecting the roughly $10 billion buyout bid from privately-held
Coty Inc, claiming that the bid ‘substantially undervalues’ the
company. Shares of Groupon (GRPN) will also be in
focus after the company’s restatement of prior results after the
close on Friday. The issue raises questions about the daily deals
company’s accounting practices and outlook.
Symantec Solutions in Demand
California-based global leader in security solutions,
Symantec Corp. (SYMC) announced that its
Protection Suite (Enterprise Edition) and Backup Exec are being
used by Premiere Global Sports Inc. The deal must have been signed
some time back and hence no financial details pertaining to it are
available.
Premiere Global Sports is a provider of travel, hospitality, and
marketing products and services. The company also arranges for
sports tickets. Being a 75-man show, Premiere Global is recognized
as a small business. But sky-rocketing data storage forced the
company to opt for Symantec’s Protection Suite, which is customized
for enterprises but has a small-business version as well.
With the Protection Suite, the sports company aims to secure its
multiple independent servers and Windows endpoints, including email
server and Web gateway virtual appliances. On the other hand,
Backup Exec simplified both backup and disaster recovery management
of the virtualized information technology system. Overall, Premiere
Global Sports found Symantec’s products very useful, as they were
able to protect, store and recover valuable data within its
virtualized environment.
Apart from this, Japan-based optical instruments provider Nikon
Corp. opted for Symantec’s Clearwell eDiscovery Platform to
process, search and analyze data required to judge a case, in
house.
Symantec’s deal wins will continue. The reason behind this is
the company’s relentless effort to capture the security market with
the latest iterations of its flagship products. In March, the
company introduced the latest version of Symantec Data Insight 3.0,
which will improve information management and facilitate the usage
of unstructured data such as documents, presentations, spreadsheets
and emails.
Symantec’s prospects look bright with the U.S. research firm
Gartner’s expectations, which says that worldwide spending on
security software could rise 10% this year to $20.7 billion.
The company’s exposure in the mobile security and data
management market is encouraging. But uncertainty over PC sales is
going to hit its Consumer segment throughout the year. Moreover,
reduction in tech spending by different government and private
organizations, stiff competition from McAfee -- acquired by
Intel Corp. (INTC) -- as well as the prevailing
economic turmoil in Europe will likely dampen the company’s
business prospects. Symantec’s guidance was weak, and we believe
that this could be due to the above-mentioned reasons.
Want more from Zacks Equity Research? Subscribe to the free
Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5515.
About Zacks Equity Research
Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and
qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and
which to sell for the long-term.
Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly
traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives
them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and
stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month
time horizons.
Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides
highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research.
Subscribe to this free newsletter today:
http://at.zacks.com/?id=5517
About Zacks
Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc.,
which was formed in 1978 by Leon Zacks. As a PhD from MIT Len knew
he could find patterns in stock market data that would lead to
superior investment results. Amongst his many accomplishments was
the formation of his proprietary stock picking system; the Zacks
Rank, which continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1
margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations
and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our
free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's
your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your
time! Register for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros
at http://at.zacks.com/?id=5518.
Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the
performance numbers displayed in this press release.
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/zacksresearch
Join us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts
Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Investors should always research companies and securities before
making any investments. Nothing herein should be construed as an
offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security.
Media Contact
Zacks Investment Research
800-767-3771 ext. 9339
support@zacks.com
http://www.zacks.com
AVON PRODS INC (AVP): Free Stock Analysis Report
GROUPON INC (GRPN): Free Stock Analysis Report
HSBC HOLDINGS (HBC): Free Stock Analysis Report
INTEL CORP (INTC): Free Stock Analysis Report
SYMANTEC CORP (SYMC): Free Stock Analysis Report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Avon Products (NYSE:AVP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Avon Products (NYSE:AVP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024