Bulls & Bears Of The Week: Costco, DuPont, IBM, Merck And More

Benzinga has examined prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week.

Bullish calls included big banks and a retailer bucking the industry trend.

Bearish calls included pharma and video game leaders and a retailer struggling to survive.

While investors and analysts mulled over the latest stance by the Federal Reserve and looked forward to a new earnings reporting season, the big U.S. indexes ended last week around 2% higher — at or near all-time highs.

It also was a week that saw a scandal that resulted in criminal charges for a billionaire former fund manager and prompted the U.S. secretary of labor to resign, as well as the passing of a computer industry pioneer and former presidential candidate and the season's first major storm.

Benzinga continues to examine the prospects for many of the stocks most popular with investors. The following are just a few of this past week's most bullish and bearish posts that may be worth another look.

Bulls

Brett Hershman's "Why You Should Keep An Eye On Citi And JPMorgan This Week" explains why Citigroup Inc C and JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM are worth watching as the earnings season kicks off.

DowDuPont spin-off DuPont de Nemours Inc DD is well-positioned to generate value, according to Jayson Derrick's "New DuPont 'Built For Success,' BofA Says In Bullish Initiation."

"6 Reasons Why Costco Is Dominating A Difficult Retail Market" by Wayne Duggan shows why Costco Wholesale Corporation COST is defying the odds and thriving in the retail market and is a rare growth story among large-cap staple stocks.

In "Breaking Down 3 Of The Year's Most Intriguing Cybersecurity Stocks," Chris Dier-Scalise points out why Zscaler Inc. ZS and two of its peers are where the action is in the digital security space. Also see how the sector ETFs have fared.

For additional bullish calls, also have a look at "Report: Tesla Planning For Production Bump At Fremont Plant" and "Analyst Stays Bullish On Baidu, Says Futuristic Tech Applications Moving Toward Execution."

Bears

"Wedbush: IBM-Red Hat Deal Holds Execution Risks" by Priya Nigam takes a look at why IBM IBM could be overestimating the benefits from its recently closed acquisition of open source software company Red Hat.

In Wayne Duggan's "Washington Worries Trigger Bearish Merck Options Trades," see why at least one large option trader is betting there won't be a Merck & Co., Inc. MRK rebound anytime soon. Is the move as bearish as it seems?

Tanzeel Akhtar's "Video Game Stocks Continue To Trade Lower Following Launch Of 'Apex Legends' Season 2" discusses why the failure of a new game to meet expectations has Activision Blizzard, Inc. ATVI and its peers in a slump.

Any turnaround for Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. JWN is a long way away. So says "Bed Bath & Beyond Plunges To New Lows After Earnings: Here's What The Street Is Saying" by Jayson Derrick.

Be sure to check out "Why Big Tech Could Face Big Threat Following Social Media Summit" and "Illumina Shares Slammed On Guidance Warning" for additional bearish calls.

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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