Friday was a winning day for most Wall Street stocks. The benchmark index and tech-heavy recorded their best week of 2022 so far, closing a week in the financial markets.
The coming week is expected to be another busy week with more revenue from high profile companies such as Walt Disney (NYSE:), Coca-Cola (NYSE:), PepsiCo (NASDAQ:), Pfizer (NYSE:), and Amgen ( NASDAQ :).
The revenue agenda also consists of notable tech names, such as Twitter (NYSE:), Peloton (NASDAQ:), Uber (NYSE:), Cloudflare (NYSE:), Twilio (NYSE:), and Datadog (NASDAQ: ).
In addition to revenues, there is also important economic data, including the latest report for January, which could show the highest level since 1981.
Regardless of which direction the market is heading, below we highlight one stock that is likely to be in high demand and another that may fall further.
Remember, however, that our timetable is for the coming week only. buying activity over the coming week as one of the largest US healthcare companies is expected to deliver top-line growth when it releases its latest financial results ahead of its opening bell on Wednesday, Feb. 9.
Consensus expectations ask the drugstore operator and pharmacy service provider to achieve fourth-quarter earnings per share of $1.82, a 40% improvement from earnings per share of $1.30 in the same period a year ago. The Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based company — whose shares recently hit their best levels since 2015 — has matched or surpassed Wall Street's earnings estimates for 24 straight quarters, dating back to the third quarter of 2015.
Meanwhile, sales are projected to grow approximately 9% year-over-year to $75.6 billion, benefiting from continued surge in demand for COVID-19 tests and vaccines, as well as increasing orders for refills on prescription. If confirmed, CVS Health's quarterly sales would be its all-time high.
As such, investors hope CVS management will maintain its optimistic view of its full-year earnings outlook for fiscal 2022, as the healthcare juggernaut continues to benefit from favorable customer demand and consumer trends as COVID variants remain with us be.
CVS climbed to a more than five-year high of $110.15 on Thursday. It ended Friday's session at $108.49, giving the healthcare specialist a valuation of $143.3 billion. Year-to-date, CVS stocks are up 5.1%, compared to the S&P 500's 5.5% decline over the same period.
Under the InvestingPro model, CVS stocks are currently undervalued and could see a 39% increase from current levels over the next 12 months to a fair value of $150.84 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
Stock To Dump: AT&T
AT&T (NYSE:) stocks are expected to weather another challenging week, with a Potential decline to new multi-year lows on the horizon as investors react to a plethora of negative developments affecting one of America's .
T shares, down 2.1% so far in 2022 and 16.8% in the past 12 months, closed Friday's session at $24.08, falling to their lowest level since July 2010 of $22.02 which was reached on December 15th. At current levels, the Dallas, Texas-based company has a market cap of approximately $172.0 billion.
Sentiment about the out-of-favor name took a big hit last week when AT&T announced plans to cut its annual dividend by nearly half to $1.11 a share, down 46% from an annual payout of $2.08 in 2021. AT&T's rebooted return would be about 6.2% based on recent calculations, well ahead of its nearly 8% return below the current payout.
The sharp dividend cut came when AT&T said it would divest – rather than divest – its stake in WarnerMedia as part of a $43 billion deal to merge its media business with Discovery (NASDAQ:) the second quarter.
Under the terms of the all-stock deal, current AT&T shareholders will receive 0.24 shares of new company Warner Bros.-Discovery (WBD) for every AT&T share they now own. A spin-off would have allowed AT&T investors to keep 100% of their investment in AT&T.
The merger will include HBO, CNN, owned by AT&T, and the Warner Bros. studio. combine with Discovery's channels, including TLC, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel of the same name.
Taking that into account, we expect the downward trend in AT&T stocks to continue in the coming days.
