Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day Highlights: Darden Restaurants, SINA Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Credit Suisse Group and Morgan Stanley

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zacks Equity Research highlights Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) as the Bull of the Day and SINA Corp. (Nasdaq: SINA) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2678.

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) boasts a unique position due to its strong value proposition, menu improvements and excellent unit-level execution with differentiated brands. The company's balanced portfolio provides a greater diversification in sales and cost synergies.

The company is also one of the few casual dining operators expanding during the sluggish economic environment, though it has not altogether been immune, as it registered sagging blended comparable restaurant sales for several quarters.

However, comparable sales in third-quarter 2010 showed a drastic improvement, which prompted Darden to lift its fiscal 2010 earnings guidance. As such, we have an Outperform recommendation on the stock.

Bear of the Day:

SINA Corp. (Nasdaq: SINA) has provided a weak outlook for the first quarter of 2010, as a result of slowdown in the Chinese economy, the global financial and credit market crisis and low visibility for its advertising business.

The competition within the online advertising business in China is fierce, with rapid technological changes and frequent new product and service introductions. However, we believe that SINA's online advertising business has a competitive edge based on its popularity in China, superior brand recognition and persistent marketing innovations.

SINA has disappointed us of late and for the near term we do not expect SINA to witness growth. We downgrade SINA to Underperform, indicating that the stock would be trading below the industry average. Our price target of $34.00 represents a P/E multiple of 25.6X 2010 EPS, a discount to the industry.

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Goldman Outperforms Estimates

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s (NYSE: GS) first quarter 2010 earnings per share of $5.59 were significantly ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.98. Results reflected strong performance in investment banking and trading and principal investments, which were partially offset by higher-than-expected expenses and net outflows, along with a decline in asset management and securities services.

GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2010 was $3.3 billion, compared to $4.8 billion in the prior quarter and $1.7 billion in the prior-year quarter. Goldman tops the industry by acquiring the leading position in worldwide announced and completed mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and public common stock offerings for the year to date, putting behind it top rivals such as Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS) (#2) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (#3).

Get the full analysis of all these stocks by going to http://at.zacks.com/?id=2649.

About the Bull and Bear of the Day

Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.

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