Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Halliburton Company, Abbott Labs, Precision Castparts Corp., Boeing (BA) and Royal Caribbean

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT), Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP), Boeing (BA) and Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL).

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Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Halliburton Goes from Buy to Sell

We are downgrading Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) shares to Sell from Buy to reflect our growing concerns about the weakening outlook for the domestic natural gas market, where the company enjoys a strong leverage through its premier position in the pressure pumping business.

Demand for pressure pumping closely tracks the overall rig count, which in turn reflects spending plans by E&P players. Pressure pumping is an umbrella term used to describe a number of vital services performed on new and existing (producing) wells.

Abbott Continues to Impress

Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) reported fourth quarter 2008 financial results this morning. Revenue for the fourth quarter came in at $7.95 billion, about $100 million below our forecast, but still higher by 10% from the fourth quarter in 2007. Foreign exchange had a negative 2% impact on revenues during the quarter, or else results would have exceeded our expectations.

The pharmaceutical division accounted for 58% of total revenues in the quarter, followed by diagnostics and nutritional products both at 17%, and vascular at 8%. All divisions posted positive operational growth during the fourth quarter, with vascular posting the most impressive growth at nearly 60% year-over-year.

Precision Castparts Announces

Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP) released Q3-09 results Tuesday. Total Q3-09 sales were $1,614.7 million, down 3.2% from Q3-08 sales of $1,668.2 million. Q3-09 sales in the Investment Cast Products and Forged Products segments were significantly impacted by the lengthy Boeing strike, with a lesser impact to the Fastener Products segment.

While Boeing (BA) aircraft production rates are resuming, PCP does not expect recovery to pre-strike levels in its fiscal '09 fourth quarter.

Royal Caribbean Nicely Priced

We maintain our Buy rating for Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL), primarily due to valuation. Although management cited a slowdown in booking trends early in the fourth quarter, we note that fuel prices have moderated recently, and we expect the recently announced cost saving initiative to provide significant benefits.

With the shares currently trading at 4.4x our 2009 earnings estimate and at a significant discount to its largest rival, we consider the current valuation to be attractive. RCL is expected to report fourth quarter results in late January.

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