The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: JPMorgan Chase, AbbVie, Royal Dutch Shell, Gilead Sciences and Anthem

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – May 18, 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: JPMorgan Chase JPM, AbbVie ABBV, Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A, Gilead Sciences GILD and Anthem ANTM.

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Reports for JPMorgan, AbbVie and Royal Dutch-Shell

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 JPMorgan Chase, AbbVie and Royal Dutch Shell. 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 >>>

JPMorgan’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry over the past year (-22% vs. -30.9%). The Zacks analyst believes that the acquisition of InstaMed, new branch openings and focus on credit card business will continue aiding its financials.

The bank surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in three of the trailing four quarters. Its first-quarter 2020 results were adversely impacted by a huge reserve build, which was done to combat coronavirus-induced economic slowdown. Also, the Fed’s accommodative policy and near-zero interest rates are expected to hurt the bank’s interest income and margins.

Further, coronavirus-induced concerns will likely continue to hamper business activities. Thus, loan growth will likely be muted in the near term. Challenges in expanding mortgage operations and significant dependence on capital market revenues will hurt fee income growth to an extent.

Shares of AbbVie have gained +1.5% over the past six months against the Zacks Large-Cap Pharmaceuticals industry’s rise of +4.8%. The Zacks analyst believes that sales erosion due to direct biosimilar competition to Humira in international markets is a big headwind. Also, the decline in HCV drug Mavyret’s sales is a concern.

AbbVie beat Q1 estimates for earnings and sales. However, it expects the COVID-19 crisis to hurt its business in Q2. Nonetheless, AbbVie’s key drug, Humira continues to see strong demand trends in the United States. AbbVie has been successful in expanding labels of its cancer drugs, Imbruvica and Venclexta.

It has an impressive late-stage pipeline. It gained approvals for two new drugs with significant potential, Skyrizi (risankizumab) and Rinvoq, in 2019. Both are off to a strong start. Allergan’s acquisition should diversify AbbVie’s revenue base and accelerate its non-Humira business.

Royal Dutch Shell’s shares have lost -39.9% over the past three months against the Zacks International Integrated Oil industry’s fall of -33.4%. The Zacks analyst believes that the company's position as a key supplier of LNG should benefit its long-term cash flow growth on the back of attractive growth opportunities.

Royal Dutch Shell’s Q1 earnings beat was overshadowed by its historic dividend cut. While Europe's largest oil company surpassed profit expectations on higher LNG sales volumes, the commodity price collapse forced the supermajor to trim its payout for the first time since World War II.

Shell is also making solid progress toward the transition to a renewable energy-focused future. But there are worries over the company’s drop in upstream production and its poor reserve replacement ratio.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Gilead Sciences and Anthem.

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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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JPMorgan Chase Co. (JPM) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS.A) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Anthem, Inc. (ANTM) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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