analysts
Life Technologies stock: Buy or sell?
January 31, 2013: 5:00 AM ETThe biotech company has made some missteps in the last few years, but solid margins and lots of cash could help keep it on track. Two analysts face off.
Ross Muken, ISI Group
By Ryan Derousseau, contributor
FORTUNE -- The Bear: Ross Muken, ISI Group. It's been a challenging period for Life Technologies (LIFE) over the past two years, and it could get worse. Life has had a core advantage in global government and academic research funding, which accounts for 35% of revenue. But given the fiscal disarray in developed markets, academic R&D budgets could enter a prolonged period of decline. Life is a great cash-flow machine, but its use of that cash has been flawed. In 2010 the company paid too much to buy Ion Torrent, which sells an inexpensive DNA sequencer that could lose out to technology from rival Illumina (ILMN). All this will lead to an estimated 1% drop in cash from operations by the end of its fiscal year, vs. 2011. There's a lot of value in the company, but management hasn't told us how it's going to fix the problems.
MORE: 15 top stock picks from star investors
Amanda Murphy, William Blair & Co.
The bull: Amanda Murphy, William Blair & Co. The company is pretty large and diverse. It focuses more on selling instruments to run large machines in a lab as opposed to the machines themselves. This creates a recurring, stable revenue stream with great margins and lots of cash. It also minimizes the exposure to academic budget cuts, since instruments won't suffer as much as higher-priced products. Some criticized the price they paid for Ion Torrent. But it gave Life a fresh product line, though there's some angst around the competition. Still, sequencing is a relatively small part of the $3.8 billion company. This is really a value stock trading at 12.5 times 2013 earnings per share. And, with a robust cash flow that we expect to jump 25% next year, it's arguably cheap.
This story is from the February 4, 2013 issue of Fortune.
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UPS stock: The bears vs. the bulls
Will a European merger and new iPhone shipments boost UPS when airfreight is flagging? Two analysts face off.
By Ryan Derousseau, contributor
FORTUNE -- The bear: Donald Broughton, Avondale Partners
"UPS (UPS) is a great company, but I see some significant short-term headwinds. Europe is decelerating faster than Asia or America, and UPS has 14% of sales -- to FedEx's 7% -- from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. With the $6 MORE
Sep 26, 2012 5:00 AM ET -
Forest Labs stock: Buy or sell?
Will new drugs pay off in time to counter patent losses, or is the company headed for a takeover? We asked two analysts to weigh in.
By Ryan Derousseau, contributor
FORTUNE -- Bear: Kim Vukhac, CLSA
Forest (FRX) had a major patent expire in March; another expires in 2015. That stands out because 78% of its sales come from these two drugs. The company's new drugs are early in their life cycle MORE
May 31, 2012 5:00 AM ET -
Is Boeing's stock ready to take off again?
The aerospace and defense giant is betting big on the Dreamliner. We got two analysts to weigh in on whether or not it will help lift shares.
Interviews by Ryan Derousseau, contributor
FORTUNE -- The bear: Zafar Khan, Société Générale
Boeing's (BA) commercial business is enjoying a long backlog of orders, as airlines continue to order fuel-efficient aircraft. But Boeing's suppliers need to quickly increase their output -- and they may not be MORE
Apr 3, 2012 5:00 AM ET -
Here comes the big profit lie
Wall Street expects corporate miracles in 2012, and that means trouble.
By Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- Brace yourself for an increase in stupid, misleading, or illegal action by U.S. companies. The trend is inevitable. In fact, odds are it's already under way.
The problem is an old one, but we haven't seen it in a while, and memories are short. It's profit expectations -- they're insanely optimistic. Companies and the MORE
Jan 6, 2012 5:00 AM ET -
The best and worst of Wall Street 2011: Analysts
FORTUNE -- Bigger was not always better when it came to picking stocks this year. Meanwhile, banking's loneliest defender soldiered on. --Alex Konrad
WINNER
Donna Jaegers D.A. Davidson
Small is beautiful. In a year in which a lot of well-known analysts got crunched, the best-performing was Donna Jaegers, who works at a tiny firm (D.A. Davidson in Denver) and picked small-caps in her sector, telecom. Fortune asked Zacks Research to rank analysts in eight sectors MORE
Dec 12, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
The best and worst of Wall Street 2011
A look back at the highs and lows of the past year in the financial markets.
FORTUNE -- To borrow from the 1978 camp classic, "Greece" is the word. Looking back at 2011, the European debt crisis -- particularly Europe's protracted will-they-or-won't-they debate over coming to the aid of their Greco-roamin' common currency partners -- was probably the single biggest factor to impact the financial markets. As if that weren't enough, MORE
Dec 12, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
Citi on BofA: 'Not our best call'
Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.
So it is with Citi analyst Keith Horowitz. He removed Bank of America (BAC) from his Top Picks Live list Thursday, noting that a 37% rally in the stock over the past six weeks brings it near $15 -- just $3 short of his target price.
Horowitz still rates the stock buy, saying it's the best value among banks, but he stripped its top-pick MORE
Colin Barr - Jan 13, 2011 11:37 AM ET -
Wall Street bulls pull in their horns
Is an even bigger stock rally ahead?
Maybe, if you believe that Wall Street analysts are a good contrary indicator – as one Wall Street analyst most definitely does.
David Bianco, the chief U.S. equity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, notes in a report Friday that sell-side analyst sentiment on stocks has dipped to its lowest level since last November.
Merrill's Sell Side Indicator, which measures how bullish the big investment MORE
Colin Barr - Oct 1, 2010 9:55 AM ET
