Despite a strong rally off October 2011 lows, large-bank valuations remain attractive with WFC, JPM, and BAC trading at price-to-book multiples of 60%, 40% and 30% relative to the S&P500 – at or below the low-end of pre-crisis ranges. Valuations
DFS beat on EPS ($1.31 vs. $1.25 consensus) and continued to outpace the industry in loan growth (5% year-on-year in card and student, and 26% and 27% in private-student and personal lending respectively); with double-digit account growth in card, we
The data in this note are extracted from: “Biopharmaceuticals R&D Productivity: Metrics, Benchmarks, and Rankings for the 22 Largest (by R&D spending) US-Listed Firms”, available at www.hiddenpipeline.com Increasing firm size = declining R&D productivity, both across (larger firms produce less
As of Sunday, 6% of the U.S. corn crop had been planted versus a five year average of 14% – a slow start to be sure. Significant progress was made across more Southern locations (Louisiana was virtually completed, for example)
We suspect that expectations were modest for MCD’s Q1 results given the weather in the U.S., recent trends ex-weather and the company’s cautious commentary on margins contained in its last sales release. We believe that the stock’s recent move higher
– NFLX beat on EPS ($0.86 vs. $0.81 consensus) and new subs (4M net adds vs. 3.85M guidance), as its original content strategy is beating on-line and traditional rivals alike. – With the rapid expansion NFLX subs and streaming hours,
Our positive stance on DuPont has been driven by two factors; valuation, and the belief that there is a real growth story in the core business. Valuation support remains but it is much less of a factor today than it
We expect 3.5% (nominal) y/y growth in US health services demand during 1Q14, the product of 2.5% growth in demand intensity and 1.0% growth in price. Intensity growth reflects a 20bp improvement over actual 4Q13 growth of 2.3%, and a
There is very little not to like in CMG’s earnings release this morning (unless you care about margins or EPS results) – but we recognize that it is a growth stock and that top line growth is pretty much all
This morning, PM reported Q1 ’14 EPS of $1.19 per share, besting consensus estimates by $0.03 – we would characterize the quality as somewhat mixed (certainly not as strong as Q4 ‘13), but our view on PM is unchanged given
