What it is that is driving the interest in General Electric over its better performing peers? There is one simple explanation, after backing out all other issues: earnings growth!
The top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday morning include Baidu, Caterpillar, GE, Honeywell, Kimberly-Clark, Schlumberger and Southern Energy.
The U.S. Army plans to add 29 MQ-9 Reaper drones to its arsenal in the current fiscal year at a cost of more than $11 million per unit.
24/7 Wall St. has identified seven companies that could easily reach the $100 billion mark to become the next mega-cap stocks.
In a recent research report, Jefferiesfocused on some large cap stocks that are still trading way below their 52-week highs.
Honeywell's CEO tried last week to convince the CEO and the chairman of United Technologies that a $90 billion merger between the two industrial giants would be beneficial.
These defense stocks are all solid additions to conservative growth and income portfolios. They all have long track records of success.
Big mergers make for big business. The larger the deal, the larger the opportunity. That also is followed by the highest stakes regarding regulatory concerns.
When the stock market becomes uncertain, investors often tend to flock toward defensive stocks or stocks that have very high-quality earnings. That generally means that their dividends are deemed safe as well.
24/7 Wall St. has put together a preview of some of the Dow Jones Industrial Average companies (and others) that are reporting their quarterly results this week.
Investors have very mixed views when it comes to conglomerate stocks. They can have enough moving parts that they are bound to have some safety nets as certain aspects of business slow.
Thursday's top analyst calls include General Electric, 3M, Shopify, SunPower, Zafgen, CIT, Ericsson, Honeywell.
24/7 Wall St. has been reviewing sectors backward and forward and wanted to look at the conglomerates for an outlook in 2016.
It comes as no surprise that insiders have ratcheted up the selling recently. But we saw little if any selling in names that looked distressed.
Honeywell International reported mixed third-quarter 2015 results before markets opened Friday morning.
Paul Ausick 
