Category Archives: stocks

Zebra Technologies ( ZBRA ), a maker of systems for managing inventory and assets, fell for the second straight day on Wednesday following a weak first-quarter report. Baird analyst Richard Eastman maintained his outperform rating on Zebra stock but slashed his price target to 64 from 87. Zebra slipped a fraction to 51.42 on the stock market today . On Tuesday, Zebra shares tumbled nearly 18% after the Lincolnshire, Ill.-based company reported Q1 results. Zebra is now at a two-year low. But Eastman says Zebra stock appears oversold. Zebra management is suffering from a credibility gap and confidence issue after a series of quarterly disappointments, he said. “In our view, shares remain attractively valued but (the company will) likely need to deliver consistent execution, meet or exceed expectations, including visible operating leverage, net synergies and free-cash-flow generation, to propel a recovery,” Eastman said. Zebra blamed a spending pause by customers and channel partners for its Q1 weakness and reduced guidance. The company’s retail industry business was most affected. In the March quarter, Zebra earned $1.01 a share excluding items on sales of $847 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for $1.22 EPS on $879 million in sales. On a year-over-year basis, earnings per share fell 27% and sales dropped 5%. It was the company’s first decline for either metric in the past 12 quarters. “It was clearly a challenging quarter as the softening demand we began to see in late 2015, particularly in North America, unexpectedly persisted through the end of the first quarter,” CEO Anders Gustafsson said on Zebra’s earnings conference call with analysts. Given a “cautious enterprise spending environment,” Zebra lowered its outlook for Q2 and the full year, Gustafsson said. Zebra makes technology for monitoring supply chains and tracking assets and transactions using RFID tags and bar codes.