The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, Qualcomm, Petrobras And Walgreens Boots Alliance

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – March 17, 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 (NYSE:JPM) , Mastercard (NYSE:MA) , Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) , Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) .

Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Analyst Reports for JPMorgan, Mastercard and Qualcomm

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 12 major stocks, including JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard and Qualcomm. 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 six months (-12.4% vs. -23.3%). The Zacks analyst believes that decent loan demand, the acquisition of InstaMed, new branch openings and focus on credit card business will continue to aid the company's financials.

The bank has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in each of the trailing four quarters. Its enhanced capital deployment plan reflects strong balance sheet position. Notably, the company has stopped its share buybacks with an aim to use the capital for lending activities amid coronavirus related slowdown.

However, the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary policy stance is expected to hurt top-line growth in the near term. Challenges in expanding mortgage operations and the company’s significant dependence on capital markets revenues make us apprehensive and might hamper financials to some extent.

Shares of Mastercard have gained +17.2% over the past year against the Zacks Financial Transaction Services industry’s rise of +10.9%. The Zacks analyst believes that the company is benefiting from shifts in payments, from physical to digital.

Investment in technology has also kept the company at the forefront of the rapidly changing payments industry. Its solid capital position enables investment in business. The company has been gaining from higher switched transactions, increase in cross-border volume and gross dollar volume, and gains from acquisitions. Increase in rebates and incentives year over year was a partial dampener.

However, escalating costs might put pressure on margins. In order to gain customers and new business Mastercard has been incurring high levels of costs under rebates and incentives, which remain a concern.

Qualcomm’s shares have lost -14.2% over the past three months against the Zacks Wireless Equipment industry’s fall of -19.7%. The Zacks analyst believes that the company is poised to benefit significantly from the settlement with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Qualcomm is focused on retaining its position in the chipset market and mobile connectivity with several technological achievements and innovative product launches. It offers the flexibility and scalability needed for broad and fast 5G adoption through commercialization by OEMs. While the company expanded its leadership to the high tiers with Snapdragon 700, Snapdragon 800 solutions should continue defining the premium tier benchmarks.

However, Qualcomm is likely to face softness in demand from China with Huawei gaining prominence in the local market and OEMs managing their inventory ahead of 5G. In addition, margins have decreased sharply due to high operating expenses and R&D costs. Aggressive competition in the mobile phone chipset market is also likely to hurt profits.

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Petrobras and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

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