HealthStream (HSTM) Cut to “Neutral” at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird cut shares of HealthStream (NASDAQ:HSTM) from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning. Robert W. Baird currently has $24.00 target price on the technology company’s stock.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. BidaskClub downgraded HealthStream from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Saturday, June 2nd. ValuEngine upgraded HealthStream from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, May 7th. Barrington Research set a $32.00 price objective on HealthStream and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, May 3rd. Zacks Investment Research upgraded HealthStream from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $28.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 3rd. Finally, Canaccord Genuity restated a hold rating and set a $26.00 price objective on shares of HealthStream in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. The company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $25.57.

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HealthStream stock opened at $27.94 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $903.18 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 90.19, a PEG ratio of 4.92 and a beta of 0.76. HealthStream has a 12 month low of $21.15 and a 12 month high of $31.53.

HealthStream (NASDAQ:HSTM) last posted its earnings results on Monday, April 30th. The technology company reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.06 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $54.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $55.85 million. HealthStream had a return on equity of 3.48% and a net margin of 13.42%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.04 earnings per share. equities research analysts anticipate that HealthStream will post 0.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In related news, insider Michael Sousa sold 16,005 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.09, for a total transaction of $401,565.45. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 13,830 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $346,994.70. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Gerard M. Hayden, Jr. sold 14,226 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.99, for a total value of $383,959.74. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,290 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $817,527.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 49,171 shares of company stock valued at $1,279,902 over the last 90 days. 21.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in HSTM. Stevens Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in HealthStream during the first quarter worth approximately $203,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in HealthStream during the first quarter worth approximately $210,000. Teacher Retirement System of Texas acquired a new stake in HealthStream during the fourth quarter worth approximately $215,000. Barclays PLC grew its stake in HealthStream by 45.6% during the first quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 9,444 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $235,000 after purchasing an additional 2,958 shares during the period. Finally, Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC acquired a new stake in HealthStream during the first quarter worth approximately $241,000. 71.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

HealthStream Company Profile

HealthStream, Inc provides workforce and provider solutions to the healthcare organizations in the United States. It operates in HealthStream Workforce Solutions and HealthStream Provider Solutions segments. The company offers workforce development solutions comprising software-as-a-service (SaaS) and subscription-based products to meet talent management, training, certification, competency assessment, performance appraisal, and development needs, as well as training, implementation, and account management services.

Don't even think about investing without a diversification strategy: Advisor

Properly investing requires taking the time to create an investment strategy so that you have a plan that allows you to stick with it when things get tough. Investing without an established plan increases your risk. Following an investment strategy is something that everyone should be doing to ensure that they are getting the most out of their investments.

There are two basic approaches that you can use to build an investment strategy: active investing and passive investing.

Active investing

Most advisors and investors follow what I call an "active" management style. This is an approach that is based on some type of information that the advisor, or investor, thinks gives them an edge in selecting their investment holdings. They might employ some type of fundamental analysis that is based on corporate earnings, growth projections, economic conditions, etc. Or they may use a form of technical analysis, making decisions based on the price movements of an investment. Technical analysis usually involves some form of charting.

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Our experience and, indeed, academic evidence show that no one, even the best active managers, can consistently predict what is going to happen in the markets �� even with all the fancy tools that are available today. For our clients, and for our own investment portfolios, we follow a different approach.

Passive investing

We follow what is often referred to as a "passive" investment strategy. That simply means that we don't try to forecast which investments are going to do well and which ones are not. So we own them all. We build our portfolios using a globally diversified mix of low-cost funds based on our clients' risk tolerances and needs �� a strategy known as strategic asset allocation. That means that we own a mix of stocks and bonds that give us broad exposure to many asset classes (such as U.S. equity and real estate).

Broadly speaking, our portfolios are built with stocks and bonds. Then we go a little deeper.

The stock side of our portfolio is made up of:

U.S. stocks: From the largest publicly traded U.S. companies to the smallest, not just the Dow 30 or the S&P 500, we own them all. International developed: Large and small companies from across the developed world, giving us exposure to Europe, Australia and the Far East. International emerging: Large and small companies from the emerging markets around the world. This category gives us exposure to less-developed countries, such as the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. It is important to note that this asset class is very volatile, so we limit our exposure to it. Real estate: These are companies that get their income from rental properties �� office-building companies, hotels, storage facilities and retail developers are examples.

The bond side of our portfolio is also diversified. It consists of:

Short-term, high-quality: Government and high-quality corporate bonds maturing in three years or less, not just from the U.S. Intermediate-term, high-quality: Similar to our short-term exposure, but these bonds mature in three to 10 years. Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS): Basically U.S. government bonds with an inflation rider. The purpose of diversifying your portfolio

The main purpose of diversifying your portfolio is to reduce the overall risk. We are trying to diversify away as much of the risk that is inherent in investing that we can. It's the proverbial "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket" strategy. We are spreading our investment dollars across asset classes that are non-correlated. We own stocks because they behave differently than bonds, and international stocks because they behave differently than U.S. companies.

Where the riskiest portfolio possible would be holding one stock or one bond, we spread the risk across thousands of different securities. It's important to note that a well-diversified portfolio will not experience all the gains when the market is rising, but it also won't suffer the extreme losses when things go the other way.

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Your specific allocation should be based on several factors. You will want to consider your cash needs, time horizon, risk tolerance, risk capacity and need for risk. Someone with an aggressive portfolio will generally own more stocks than bonds. More conservative portfolios will lean more toward bonds.

Investing requires time and attention

It's important to remember that building an investment portfolio is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. Once you are invested, you need to make sure that the portfolio stays in balance. As asset classes move in and out of favor, you want to make sure that your mix stays true. For example, an investor who had a 60/40 stock-to-bond mix at the beginning of 2017 may have finished the year at 70/30 because of the big rally in stock prices. If not rebalanced, the portfolio would be taking on more risk. A disciplined rebalance strategy will bring the mix back to 60/40 by selling some of the stocks while their price is up and buying some of the bonds while their price is lower. Buying low and selling high is how the investment game is supposed to be played.

We know that we cannot control or predict the markets, so we don't try. Instead, we work on controlling what we can control. We can control the risk in the portfolio by the asset allocation mix. We work to control the costs of investing by using low-cost vehicles and limiting trading. We also try to control the tax consequences by managing gains and losses as much as possible.

(Editor's Note: This column originally appeared on Investopedia.com.)

�� By Bob Rall, principal at Rall Capital Management

Weekly Research Analysts’ Ratings Updates for AutoZone (AZO)

AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) recently received a number of ratings updates from brokerages and research firms:

5/24/2018 – AutoZone was upgraded by analysts at ValuEngine from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating. 5/23/2018 – AutoZone had its price target lowered by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $900.00 to $800.00. They now have an “overweight” rating on the stock. 5/23/2018 – AutoZone had its price target lowered by analysts at Wedbush from $750.00 to $680.00. They now have an “outperform” rating on the stock. 5/23/2018 – AutoZone had its price target lowered by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada to $668.00. They now have a “market perform” rating on the stock. 5/23/2018 – AutoZone had its price target lowered by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $750.00 to $700.00. They now have an “equal weight” rating on the stock. 5/22/2018 – AutoZone had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Wells Fargo & Co. They now have a $700.00 price target on the stock. 5/7/2018 – AutoZone was upgraded by analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc from a “buy” rating to a “conviction-buy” rating. They now have a $491.13 price target on the stock. 5/2/2018 – AutoZone was downgraded by analysts at ValuEngine from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating. 4/25/2018 – AutoZone had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Argus. They now have a $850.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $875.00. 4/23/2018 – AutoZone is now covered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Co. They set an “outperform” rating and a $700.00 price target on the stock. 4/17/2018 – AutoZone had its “neutral” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Guggenheim. 4/5/2018 – AutoZone was upgraded by analysts at Wedbush from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating. They now have a $750.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $670.00.

AutoZone stock opened at $653.78 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of -3.79, a quick ratio of 0.15 and a current ratio of 0.98. AutoZone, Inc. has a 12-month low of $491.13 and a 12-month high of $797.89. The firm has a market cap of $17.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.19, a P/E/G ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 0.85.

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AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, May 22nd. The company reported $13.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $12.99 by $0.43. AutoZone had a net margin of 12.00% and a negative return on equity of 88.86%. The company had revenue of $2.26 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.71 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $11.44 EPS. AutoZone’s quarterly revenue was down 13.7% compared to the same quarter last year. equities research analysts expect that AutoZone, Inc. will post 49.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In related news, Director Douglas H. Brooks bought 162 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 16th. The shares were bought at an average price of $607.49 per share, for a total transaction of $98,413.38. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,904 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,156,660.96. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 2.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Synovus Financial Corp bought a new stake in AutoZone during the 1st quarter valued at $135,000. First Republic Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in AutoZone during the 4th quarter valued at $202,000. John G Ullman & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in AutoZone during the 4th quarter valued at $213,000. Truepoint Inc. bought a new stake in AutoZone during the 4th quarter valued at $213,000. Finally, Chilton Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in AutoZone during the 4th quarter valued at $213,000. Institutional investors own 88.96% of the company’s stock.

AutoZone, Inc retails and distributes automotive replacement parts and accessories. It offers various products for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans, and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products. The company's products include A/C compressors, batteries and accessories, bearings, belts and hoses, calipers, carburetors, chassis, clutches, CV axles, engines, fuel pumps, fuses, ignition and lighting products, mufflers, radiators, thermostats, starters and alternators, and water pumps.