BJ's Restaurants, Newell Brands, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel and Nvidia highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 24, 2018 – Zacks Equity Research highlights BJ’s Restaurants Inc. BJRI as the Bull of the Day, Newell Brands NWL as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Advanced Micro Devices AMD, Intel INTC and Nvidia NVDA.

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Founded back in 1978, BJ’s Restaurants Inc. is a California-based casual-dining restaurant and brewery chain. Their restaurants are either operated as a Brewery, which includes a brewery within it, or as a Brewhouse, which receives the beer it sells from one of its breweries or independent third-party brewers. BJ’s also operates a smaller format Pizza & Grill restaurant. Popular menu items include Chicago-style pizza and the unique dessert, the Pizookie.

BJ’s Q2 earnings performance marked the company’s third consecutive beat, with the bottom line surpassing our estimate by over 23%. Revenues also topped the Zacks Consensus, and grew 8.2% year-over-year. Notably, comparable restaurant sales jumped 5.6% thanks to a 2.5% increase in traffic, BJ’s best sales performance in several quarters.

Along with new initiatives like its slow-cooked menu, delivery, and handheld server tablets, management attributed this strong growth to its new menu items, off-premise sales, and Daily Brewhouse Specials.

BJRI also reported restaurant-level operating margin expansion of 120 basis points to 19% due to improving comps. Additionally, food and packaging costs dropped 120 basis points, and labor, which is the company’s biggest line item expense, was basically flat as a percentage of revenue for the quarter.

The company opened two new restaurants, including its 200^th restaurant, and is on track with its goal of opening five new locations this year.

CEO Greg Trojan noted that during Q2, 42 of BJ’s restaurants set daily sales records, while 23 set weekly sales records. “As we move into the second half of 2018, we remain focused on driving sales and traffic and taking market share in the casual dining segment of the restaurant industry,” Trojan said.

Bear of the Day:

Newell Brands is a leading global consumer goods company headquartered in Hoboken, NJ. Its portfolio is full of well-known brands, including Paper Mate, Sharpie, EXPO, Elmer’s, Josten’s, Oster, Sunbeam, Mr. Coffee, Graco, Calphalon, Contigo, First Alert, and Yankee Candle.

Shares of NWL have experienced a rocky stretch lately, falling almost 30% year-to-date. Mixed results in Newell’s second-quarter earnings report didn’t help things either; the stock took an 18% hit as a result.

Looking at Newell’s Q2 report a little deeper, the company managed to beat the Zacks Consensus, but revenues lagged, marking the second consecutive miss; sales declined 12.8% year-over-year due to a new revenue recognition standard and the adverse impact of last year’s divestitures.

All of Newell’s main segments saw sales declines. Food & Appliances dropped almost 12% to $621 million; Home & Outdoor Living came in at $742 million, down 6.7% from the prior-year period; and Learnings & Development generated sales of $839 million, falling over 15% year-over-year.

Additional content:

AMD Stock Hits New High: Time to Buy?

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices soared over 6.5% Thursday to hit a 52-week high on the back of an analyst upgrade that highlighted the chipmaker’s ability to compete against rival Intel. The question for investors is should they buy AMD stock even after it climbed to a new high?

Upgrade

Analysts at Rosenblatt Securities raised their price target for shares of AMD from $27 to $30, which marked a roughly 44% upside from Wednesday’s closing price of $20.90 per share. The firm based its new AMD price target on the firm’s current advantages over Intel as well as Nvidia, which followed a meeting with AMD executives. “AMD never planned or expected Intel to have 10nm delays in their own product planning from years' back and acknowledges that a historical window of opportunity has opened,” analyst Hans Mosesmann wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

“We believe AMD has a multi-year advantage vs. Intel in CPUs with 7nm and a 6-month plus advantage vs. Nvidia in GPUs for the datacenter.”

Intel has experienced multiple delays on the mass production roll out of its 10-nanometer chips, which aren’t due out until late 2019. In contrast, AMD’s 7-nanometer products are set to launch later this year. Rosenblatt’s new $30 price target marks the highest of the 26 analysts who cover AMD, according to FactSet.

AMD saw its stock price surge over 6.5% through early afternoon trading Thursday to hit $22.29 per share, which represented a new 52-week high and marked its highest price point since 2006.

Price Movement

AMD’s climb is part of a massive run. Shares of AMD have skyrocketed over 116% since the start of the year, which blows away its industry’s 6% gains and the S&P 500’s roughly 7% jump. Over the last five years, AMD has seen its stock price soar over 522%. More impressively, shares of AMD are up 1,173% over the last three years, from under $2 per share in August of 2015.

Outlook

Looking ahead, our current Zacks Consensus Estimate is calling for AMD’s full-year revenues to surge by 25.5% to hit $6.69 billion. At the other end of the income statement, the firm is expected to see its adjusted quarterly earnings soar 176% from $0.17 per share to $0.47 per share.

Investors should be pleased to see these impressive top and bottom line growth projection for AMD’s current fiscal year. However, the company’s earnings revision activity has been relatively mixed recently. AMD has seen five upward earnings estimate revisions for its current fiscal year as well the following year, over the last 30 days. But the firm has also seen three downward revisions during this same stretch for both periods, which helps land AMD a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Plus, AMD is currently trading at 43X forward 12-month Zacks Consensus EPS estimates, which marks a massive premium compared to the S&P’s 17.4X and its industry’s 11X average. Therefore, AMD stock might be one to just keep an eye on for now, especially at a new decade-plus high.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>

Get today’s Zacks #1 Stock of the Day with your free subscription to Profit from the Pros newsletter:

About the Bull and Bear of the Day

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.

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 analyst 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.

Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has nearly tripled the market from 1988 through 2015. Its average gain has been a stellar +26% per year. See these high-potential stocks free >>.

Follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/zacksresearch

Join us on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts

Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com

https://www.zacks.com

Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer.

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.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
Newell Brands Inc. (NWL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
BJ's Restaurants, Inc. (BJRI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research