The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Visa, Bank of America, Citigroup, Netflix and Duke Energy

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – March 25, 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: Visa V, Bank of America BAC, Citigroup C, Netflix NFLX and Duke Energy DUK.

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Stock Reports for Visa, Bank of America and Citigroup

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 Visa, Bank of America and Citigroup. 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 >>>

Visa’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Financial Transaction Services over the past six months (-22.5% vs. -27.8%). The Zacks analyst believes that the company is likely to see a slowdown in its cross-border business due to coronavirus outbreak.

Numerous acquisitions and alliances plus technology upgrades and effective marketing have paved the way for long-term growth and consistent increase in revenues. Shift in payments such as mobile, cards and online paved way for long-term growth and led to an increase in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions.

The acquisition of Visa Europe is a long-term growth strategy for the company. Its international business has been expanding and adds diversification benefits. Its strong capital position is another positive. However, high client incentives and expenses weigh on its operating margin.

Shares of Bank of America have lost 28.3% over the past year against the Zacks Major Regional Banks’ fall of 35.1%. The Zacks analyst believes that opening branches in new regions, improved digital offerings, decent loan demand and efforts to control costs are expected to aid profitability despite near-zero interest rates.

Efforts to focus more on consumer banking business have started bearing fruit. The company's enhanced capital deployment actions reflect a solid liquidity position. However, significant dependence on capital markets performance makes us apprehensive, given its cyclical nature.

This is likely to hurt the company’s fee income growth, and in turn negatively affect the top line. A stretched valuation limits the stock's upside potential.

Citigroup’s shares have lost 50.9% over the past three months against the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry’s fall of 49%. The Zacks analyst believes that Citigroup’s streamlining efforts, along with strategic investments in core business, bode well for the long term.

Further, net interest revenues will likely be supported by loan growth and mix, despite low rates. Moreover, prudent expense management is likely to aid bottom-line expansion. However, pending litigation issues might keep legal expenses elevated.

Additionally, decline in equity-market revenues and volatile underwriting business are concerns. Notably, the current economic environment is uncertain due to the coronavirus outbreak and the company has temporarily suspended share buybacks through the second quarter of 2020.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Netflix and Duke Energy.

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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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Bank of America Corporation (BAC) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Citigroup Inc. (C) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Visa Inc. (V) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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