Citigroup Receives A 'Buy' Rating By Merrill Lynch

When speaking of the banks currently operating in the United States, it will be seen that recently a lot of high end volatility was observed on the stock index right after a couple of new decisions were made by the Federal Reserve, which were to determine the way banks carried out their operations in the near future. The investors in the investment banks were keen to know how the changes will affect the banking system at large and it looks like Citigroup has already been given a raised stock value by some prominent analysts of Merrill Lynch equity firm.

Merrill Lynch analysts have been tracking down the changes that could be brought about by the changes in the interest rate getting raised by the government and it looks like things might just get better for Citigroup in the upcoming days, as analysts have suggested a raised price of around $65 to the Citigroup stock. This is majorly backed up by the positivity that was shown by the earnings that were released by the investment firm some time back. Furthermore, analysts also believe that for the book value of the stock, the value that should be considered should come around $60.

Citigroup bank has also managed to announce a revenue generation for the past quarter at $18.5 billion which did disappoint the investors for the obvious reasons that the revenue on a year over year basis fell by a huge 7% while the EPS remained at $1.42 for the quarter. However, there were some positives to be considered in the earnings call and it was most definitely the net income, which was reported at an increase of a colossal 23% as compared to the same quarter in the year before and was noted down at $4.2 billion.  

As for the more important things for the bank, the fact that Citigroup finance has worked out a successful plan of cutting down on costs and making its revenue generation still better is perfectly working out for the giant. The Merrill Lynch analysts also believe that the bank will soon be coming right up to the target of achieving its Return On Assets for the current year and when it does, it will still be in a better position than before and its stock price might also increase as well.

On a completely different side, the EPS targets for the next quarter have been lowered down by most of the analysts, where first it was $1.25 and after the amendments, it has now been made to $1.16.

IBM Corp To Announce Earnings On October 19

The software company is all set to announce its earnings on October 19, which will determine the sentiments investors should be having towards the stock of the company

International Business Machine Corporation has witnessed some important highs in the recent times, in which the giant has experienced a rise in the stock price coming around at 5 percent, which has also been appreciated by analysts who are covering the stock of the company. Despite the increase, it was also seen that the shares of the tech giant observed a lower than 6 percent share values on a year to year basis. In the quarter before the current one, the revenue that was collected by the giant came around to be at a drop of 32 percent in the hardware department, whereas the software sales also dropped which brought a downfall to the revenue by 10 percent, another alarming figure to be taken into consideration by the giant.

Analysts who are looking at the IBM stock closely are talking about how the shareholders will be able to know what the stock holds for them once the earnings are released on October 19. Keeping in mind the kind of sales it has recently been making the industry, most of the equity analysts are expected to downgrade the giant’s stock for the earnings call. However, for analysts who choose to focus on the dividend yield that is offered by the management of the company at around 3.5 percent, are sure to upgrade the stock of the firm in the near future.

The CEO of IBM, Ginni Remetty, has spoken to the press on a lot of occasions and has expressed how the slow shift of the company from old school computers to the new technology is what has made the firm a little backward in the tech industry. In the same manner, rival Microsoft has also gone through the same efforts of trying to keep up with the fast moving changes in the industry, which has been on the giant’s expense for a really long time.

The tech and software giant, however, is not thought to be working up to Microsoft’s level so far as it has still not grasped the massive changes being made in the cloud computing business. However, the giant has still been growing in terms of its data storage network. According to its previous quarter, the growth has come out to be at 20 percent, which is being considered by the analysts to be more than what Microsoft has achieved, even though it is supposedly on top of the cloud and tech business when it comes to production of PCs.

Netflix Stock Update By Sell-Side Firms

Despite mounting competitive threats from established and budding streaming rivals, the Street is considerably bullish on Netflix’s prospects.

Netflix Inc. stock has dropped nearly 17% since mid-August due to enormous pressure from streaming competitors. Regardless of shareholder concerns over the company’s leadership position, equity analysts at the Street’s remain bullish on the streaming giant’s stock.

The Service Video on Demand (SVOD) has now become a well-known household name in the United States, achieving substantial diffusion in the country. While, nearly two thirds of the households are not even subscribed to the service. Therefore, as the company increases in popularity, the overall addressable market might churn out number of subscriber’s for Netflix domestically.

Moreover, its global expansion strategy portend well for substantial growth in the long term. The streaming giant has plans to make its service available to an overall of 200 nations by the end of next year. Once the international rollout is done, the streaming giant might see substantial growth by the addition of subscribers in the global market. This will result in higher revenue growth.

The streaming giant recently disclosed its plan to introduce its service in four critical market in Asia, namely Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan by the start of next year. Analysts are optimistic that these launches of new services will help the company in maintaining strong subscriber growth over the coming few years.

According to the data gathered by Bloomberg, out of 45 analysts having coverage to Netflix stock, over 50% are bullish of the company’s stock. 23 gave it a Buy, 16 recommend a Hold, while only six suggested a Sell rating to the stock. The average twelve month consensus price target stands at $117.38, reflecting 14.8% upside potential in the coming future.

Jeffery Wlodarczak, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group LLC holds a bullish target price on the stock. Mr. Wlodarczak suggests a rating of Buy on Netflix stock and expects stock to increase to $175 mark next year reflecting an upside potential of over 71% from the present price levels.

On the other hand, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities continues his bearish outlook on the stock. He recommends $40 price target with an Underperform rating.

However, majority of popular equity Investment Company’s hold a positive viewpoint for the company. Morgan Stanley assigns $127 of price target, JP Morgan suggests it at $127 while Credit Suisse and UBS place target price of $110 and $143, respectively.

The stock year-to-date performance also showed its growth and following appreciation in price. Netflix stock news reveals that the stock was down 1.46% to $102.24.