Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) Expected to Announce Quarterly Sales of $5.15 Billion

Wall Street analysts forecast that Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) will report $5.15 billion in sales for the current fiscal quarter, Zacks reports. Seven analysts have issued estimates for Gilead Sciences’ earnings, with the highest sales estimate coming in at $5.22 billion and the lowest estimate coming in at $5.06 billion. Gilead Sciences reported sales of $7.14 billion in the same quarter last year, which indicates a negative year-over-year growth rate of 27.9%. The business is expected to issue its next quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 25th.

On average, analysts expect that Gilead Sciences will report full year sales of $20.75 billion for the current fiscal year, with estimates ranging from $20.23 billion to $21.49 billion. For the next year, analysts forecast that the business will post sales of $21.25 billion per share, with estimates ranging from $19.38 billion to $22.74 billion. Zacks Investment Research’s sales calculations are an average based on a survey of analysts that cover Gilead Sciences.

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Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, May 1st. The biopharmaceutical company reported $1.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.67 by ($0.19). Gilead Sciences had a return on equity of 45.49% and a net margin of 14.03%. The firm had revenue of $5.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.40 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.23 EPS. Gilead Sciences’s revenue for the quarter was down 21.8% on a year-over-year basis.

GILD has been the subject of several recent research reports. Zacks Investment Research cut Gilead Sciences from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 11th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Gilead Sciences in a research note on Wednesday, May 2nd. BidaskClub cut Gilead Sciences from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday. ValuEngine cut Gilead Sciences from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 2nd. Finally, Credit Suisse Group set a $80.00 price target on Gilead Sciences and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. The company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $88.00.

In other Gilead Sciences news, Director John Francis Cogan sold 5,833 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.47, for a total value of $434,383.51. Following the transaction, the director now owns 58,452 shares in the company, valued at $4,352,920.44. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director John C. Martin sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.14, for a total value of $3,657,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 3,067,762 shares in the company, valued at approximately $224,376,112.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 179,168 shares of company stock worth $12,789,233. Corporate insiders own 1.30% of the company’s stock.

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Gilead Sciences by 1.4% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 105,236,053 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $7,933,746,000 after purchasing an additional 1,438,806 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in Gilead Sciences by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 30,542,928 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $2,188,095,000 after buying an additional 446,263 shares during the last quarter. Parnassus Investments CA increased its position in Gilead Sciences by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments CA now owns 19,159,748 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $1,372,604,000 after buying an additional 464,609 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Gilead Sciences by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,849,063 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $1,133,346,000 after buying an additional 379,867 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sanders Capital LLC increased its position in Gilead Sciences by 102.9% in the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 9,910,493 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $757,119,000 after buying an additional 5,026,015 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.60% of the company’s stock.

Shares of GILD stock traded down $0.45 on Thursday, hitting $71.07. The company had a trading volume of 6,118,885 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,177,516. The stock has a market cap of $92.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.30, a PEG ratio of -6.22 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a current ratio of 2.84, a quick ratio of 2.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. Gilead Sciences has a twelve month low of $64.27 and a twelve month high of $89.54.

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 15th will be issued a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 14th. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.21%. Gilead Sciences’s payout ratio is currently 26.64%.

Gilead Sciences Company Profile

Gilead Sciences, Inc is a biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the research, development, and commercialization of medicines in areas of unmet medical need. The firm offers antiviral products under Harvoni, Genvoya, Epclusa, Truvada, Atripla, Descovy, Stribild, Viread, Odefsey, Complera/Eviplera, Sovaldi, and Vosevi brands.

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How Canadian Investors Can Seek Shelter From the Trade War

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Seeking shelter from the escalating global trade war? For investors in Canadian markets, technology, health care and real estate stocks, along with government bonds, are the places to park money until the storm passes, strategists say.

Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite Index retreated Tuesday, joining most equity markets lower, as the U.S. and China threatened punishing tariffs on each other’s imports. The loonie also tumbled while government bonds rallied.

Canada may not seem like the safest place to invest in the middle of the global trade spat, given stalled Nafta talks and new U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports. But investors shouldn’t flee the market entirely, said Luc Vallee, chief strategist at Laurentian Bank Securities.

“Keeping some funds in the Canadian index is not such a bad idea,” Vallee said in a phone interview. “The world economy is still growing fast, demand for commodities, demand for oil -- I think they will compensate over the next year for any fallout in the other sectors.”

He recommends exposure to technology companies like CGI Group Inc., a fast-growing IT provider that has operations on both sides of the border and won’t be seriously affected by potential tariffs. He also likes health-care stocks, real estate investment trusts and insurance companies like Power Corp. of Canada that have growing exposure to China.

Canada Rebound

These sectors don’t have much impact on the broader S&P/TSX, with technology and health care accounting for 4.2 percent and 1.4 percent of the benchmark’s weight respectively. But that doesn’t mean the Canadian market as a whole will underperform. In fact, Vallee sees the S&P/TSX doing better than the S&P 500 Index in 2018, forecasting a total gain of 11 percent for the Canadian benchmark and about 5 percent for U.S. stocks. Canada’s main equity gauge has risen less than 1 percent this year, trailing the 3 percent U.S. gain.

“A lot of companies on the U.S. stock market are exposed to trade as well, much more than the economy itself,” he said. A stronger U.S. dollar will take a bite out of those companies’ earnings, and U.S. stocks are also trading at higher multiples than their Canadian counterparts, he added.

High Tolerance

Canadian investors “are going to have to be tolerant of a lot of uncertainty, particularly as it relates to the trade negotiations,” but the market still looks reasonably valued and earnings expectations continue to accelerate, said Candice Bangsund, vice president and portfolio manager of global asset allocation at Fiera Capital Corp.

“We still think there’s opportunity here, particularly in those later-stage sectors of the marketplace” like resources and financials, said Bangsund, who sees the S&P/TSX hitting 17,300 by year-end as oil prices rise to $72 a barrel. That implies a 5.8 percent gain for Canadian stocks from current levels.

Canadian companies with a high percentage of foreign revenue have outperformed domestic-focused companies this year and should continue to do so, Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a recent note.

“We believe the passage of U.S. tax reform and the associated surge in U.S. growth are likely the main drivers,” he wrote.

Onex, Boyd

S&P/TSX firms with the highest foreign revenue exposure, excluding resource companies, include Dream Global Real Estate Investment Trust, Enghouse Systems Ltd., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., Onex Corp. and Mitel Networks Corp. Other potential winners include Boyd Group Income Fund, the auto-repair operator that gets almost 90 percent of its revenue from the U.S. market. Boyd, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, jumped to a record high Tuesday of C$119.60.

Canadian firms with U.S. revenue will also benefit from a weaker loonie, which has tumbled more than 5 percent this year. The Canadian dollar slipped to a one-year low of 75.24 U.S. cents Tuesday, and is the second-worst performer among major currencies against the U.S. greenback over the past month.

Even the loonie may be finding a bottom, as most of the damage from the trade war rhetoric has been done, according to Juan Perez, a Washington-based senior foreign exchange trader and strategist at Tempus Inc. He was among the top three loonie forecasters in the first quarter, according to a Bloomberg ranking. He sees the currency rebounding from about C$1.33 to the dollar.

“Tariffs are on and off depending on tweet storms,” Perez said. “Oil and commodities will catch a break in the second half of the year and propel the Canadian dollar to ranges of C$1.295-1.305 per U.S. dollar.”

As a last resort, Canadian government bonds are always a good haven. Government debt has been a beneficiary of the global flight to safety, with the yield on the country’s 10-year securities falling five basis points to 2.15 percent Tuesday, the lowest since April 9.

— With assistance by Maciej Onoszko

Nautilus (NLS) Raised to “Hold” at ValuEngine

Nautilus (NYSE:NLS) was upgraded by equities research analysts at ValuEngine from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Monday.

NLS has been the subject of several other reports. Imperial Capital reissued an “in-line” rating and issued a $12.00 price objective (down from $14.00) on shares of Nautilus in a research report on Wednesday, March 7th. B. Riley lifted their price objective on Nautilus from $16.75 to $18.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 8th. DA Davidson reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Nautilus in a research report on Tuesday, May 8th. Zacks Investment Research lowered Nautilus from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, March 9th. Finally, Lake Street Capital reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $14.00 price objective (down from $15.00) on shares of Nautilus in a research report on Tuesday, March 6th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. The company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $17.75.

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Nautilus traded up $0.20, hitting $16.50, during midday trading on Monday, according to MarketBeat.com. 228,500 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 339,199. The company has a market capitalization of $495.76 million, a PE ratio of 18.75 and a beta of 1.33. Nautilus has a 1-year low of $11.30 and a 1-year high of $19.25. The company has a current ratio of 2.27, a quick ratio of 1.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

Nautilus (NYSE:NLS) last announced its earnings results on Monday, May 7th. The specialty retailer reported $0.26 EPS for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.05. Nautilus had a return on equity of 15.45% and a net margin of 6.68%. The firm had revenue of $114.80 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.77 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.26 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.3% compared to the same quarter last year. equities research analysts predict that Nautilus will post 1.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Nautilus declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, March 5th that allows the company to repurchase $15.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the specialty retailer to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

In related news, CEO Bruce M. Cazenave sold 5,350 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $12.97, for a total value of $69,389.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 381,396 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,946,706.12. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Bruce M. Cazenave sold 10,700 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.51, for a total value of $176,657.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 389,044 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,423,116.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 32,958 shares of company stock valued at $501,871 over the last ninety days. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Engine Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Nautilus in the 4th quarter valued at about $134,000. Teacher Retirement System of Texas bought a new stake in Nautilus in the 4th quarter valued at about $142,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new stake in Nautilus in the 4th quarter valued at about $179,000. Jefferies Group LLC bought a new stake in Nautilus in the 4th quarter valued at about $183,000. Finally, MetLife Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Nautilus in the 4th quarter valued at about $218,000. 87.22% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Nautilus

Nautilus, Inc, a consumer fitness products company, designs, develops, sources, and markets cardio and strength fitness products, and related accessories for consumer use in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Direct and Retail. It offers specialized cardio products, treadmills, elliptical machine, bike products, strength products, home gyms, dumbbells, kettlebell weights, and weight benches primarily under the Nautilus, Bowflex, Octane Fitness, Schwinn, and Universal brands.

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