Sterling Construction, Cerner, Lululemon, Broadcom And Qualcomm Highlighted As Zacks Bull And Bear Of The Day

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – Dec 7, 2017 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Sterling Construction (NASDAQ:STRL) as the Bull of the Day and Cerner Corporation (NASDAQ:CERN) as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on the Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU) , Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) .

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Sterling Construction is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has a "B" for the growth style score. Being the aggressive growth stock strategist I like to see "A" for growth but I don't always get what I want. Sometimes I get more than what I want which is why this stock is the Bull of the Day.

Description

Sterling Construction Company, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a heavy civil construction company in Texas, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, California, Hawaii, and other states in theUS. The company builds, repairs, and reconstructs transportation infrastructure projects, including highways, roads, bridges, airfields. Sterling Construction Company, Inc. was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.

Recent Earnings

On October 30, the company reported EPS of $0.26 when $0.22 was expected. It was the third consecutive beat of the Zacks Consensus estimate and good for an 18% positive earnings surprise.

Revenues were sharply higher than expected. The company posted sales of $304M when the Zacks Consensus Estimate was calling for $262M. That $42M difference translates to a 16% positive revenue surprise.

Importantly, the company guided higher as well in moving the revenue range from between $850M - $880M to $915M to $935M when the consensus was calling for $875M.

Stocks that beat and then raise guidance have the best chance of seeing a post earnings drift higher.

Estimate Revisions

Over the last several months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has been moving higher. Back in July, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2017 was sitting at $0.36 but bumped up to $0.39 in August. By October the number was up to $0.44 and we are currently at $0.45. Those are all positive moves in the right direction.

The 2018 number hasn't seen as much movement. It was $0.96 back in May and moved to $0.98 in October and that has been the only movement. Still, that number implies some very strong earnings growth for next year.

Valuation

As noted above, the earnings growth for next year is more than 100% -- well 119% to be exact, so you are going to have to pay for that kind of earnings growth. The forward PE for STRL is 38x and that is more than double the industry average of 16x. The price to book multiple of 3.2x is only slightly higher than the 2.8x industry average. Finally, the price to sales multiple of 0.5x is well below the industry average of 0.9x.

Bear of the Day:

Cerner Corporation recently missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate and that led to analysts lowering future earnings estimates. When that happens, the Zacks Rank falls, and now as a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) CERN is the Bear of the Day.

Description

Cerner Corporation is contributing to the systemic change of health and care delivery. For more than 30 years Cerner has been executing its vision to make health care safer and more efficient. Leveraging the experience of more than three decades in clinical information systems, Cerner is building on the knowledge that is in the system to support evidence-based clinical decisions, prevent medical errors and empower patients in their care.

The company offers Cerner Millennium architecture, which includes clinical, financial, and management information systems that allow providers to access an individual's electronic health record at the point of care, and organizes and delivers information for physicians, nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, front- and back-office professionals, and consumers.

Earnings History

The most recent report was a miss, but it was only 1 cent. Prior to that, there were two meets and one beat out of the last four reports. To me, that looks OK, and is not enough to become a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Estimates Revisions

The detailed estimates page shows me that there have been a ton of negative revisions over the last 60 days. This is the reason the stock is now a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Additional Content:

Fresh Earnings Beats from AVGO, LULU

Just when you thought earnings season was over… shares of both Lululemon and Broadcom are up in late trading today following their respective Q3-18 and Q4-17 earnings reports. Even beneath their headline beats, both companies raised guidance and supplied investors with plenty of goodies heading into holiday season.

Broadcom, noteworthy lately for its move to buy out like-sized competitor Qualcomm, outperformed analyst expectations on both top and bottom lines. Earnings of $4.59 per share outpaced the Zacks consensus of $4.52 on quarterly revenues of $4.85 billion, better than the $4.83 billion analysts were looking for. Guidance for fiscal Q1 2018 on the top line was raised to around $5.3 billion, well beyond the Q4 actual and the Q1 estimate of around $4.8 billion.

A full $2.2 billion in revenues came from the company’s Wired business, with $1.8 billion coming from Wireless. Further, Broadcom has considerably upped its interim quarterly dividend by 72%. Shares are up more than a point and a half in after-hours trading, but have been trading down since Thanksgiving.

lululemon, for its part, brought forth a 4-cent beat on its bottom line to 56 cents per share. Quarterly revenues easily surpassed the $610 million expected to $619 million in the quarter. This marks the third-straight positive earnings surprise, with a trailing 4-quarter average positive surprise of 8.5%. Comps rose 7% in the quarter, but with limited brick-and-mortar options (388 stores overall) it’s clear much of this growth for lululemon has come on-line. The company also raised Q4 guidance. For more on LULU’s earnings report, click here.

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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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