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Chicago, IL – August 27, 2025 – Zacks Equity Research shares Willdan Group, Inc. WLDN as the Bull of the Day and Eastman Chemical Co. EMN as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Astera Labs ALAB, Broadcom AVGO and Marvell Technology MRVL.
Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:
Willdan Group, Inc. is a hidden AI Revolution stock as it consults on the electric grid. This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) is expected to grow earnings by 48% this year.
Willdan is a nationwide provider of professional, technical and consulting services to utilities, government agencies and private industry.
It's a small cap company with a market cap of $1.7 billion. Willdan's specialties include electric grid solutions, energy efficiency and sustainability, engineering and planning, and municipal financial consulting.
On Aug 7, 2025, Willdan Group reported its second quarter 2025 earnings results. It blew by the Zacks Consensus by $0.78. Willdan reported earnings of $1.50 versus the consensus of $0.72. That's a beat of 108.3%.
It was the fourth consecutive large beat with its four-quarter average surprise now being 54%.
Contract revenue was up 23% to $173.5 million while net revenue was up 31.1% to $95 million.
For the first six months of the year, contract revenue jumped 23.7% to $325.9 million.
"These results reflect a combination of consistent execution in our core programs, new contract wins, and successful strategic acquisitions," said Mike Bieber, Willdan's President and CEO.
"Electricity load growth from data centers and broader electrification trends are accelerating the need for reliable power and resilient grid infrastructure, driving investment across our markets," he added.
With such a strong first half, the company is bullish about the rest of the year. It raised its full year financial targets.
Net revenue is expected to be between $340 million and $350 million, up from the guidance it gave on May 8, 2025, with its first quarter earnings report, of between $325 million and $335 million.
Earnings are now expected to be in the range of $3.50 and $3.65, up from its prior guidance of $2.75 to $2.90.
With another beat and raise, and a big increase in the earnings guidance, it's not a surprise that the analysts have also been raising their full year earnings estimates.
2 estimates were raised in the last 30 days for 2025, pushing up the Zacks Consensus to $3.60 from $2.82. That is at the higher end of the company's guidance range.
That's earnings growth of 48.2% as the company made $2.43 last year.
2 estimates were also increased for 2026 pushing the Zacks Consensus up to $4.00. That's another 11% earnings growth.
Here's what it looks like on the 5-year Price and Consensus chart.
Willdan Group shares have taken off just like the earnings, gaining 209% year-to-date. It's even easily outperforming NVIDIA over the same period.
Willdan is still attractive on a valuation basis. Yes, it's now trading with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 32. That does not scream value.
But it's price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is just 2.7 which is more attractive. Willdan is not trading at the extreme valuations like Palantir and other AI technology stocks.
If you're looking for a small cap stock with exposure to the AI Revolution through the infrastructure buildout, Willdan Group should be on your short list.
Eastman Chemical Co. is experiencing a challenging global macroenvironment as it also deals with tariffs. This Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) is expected to see earnings decline 22% this year.
Eastman is a global specialty materials company. Founded in 1920, it serves customers in the transportation, building and construction and consumables industries, in more than 100 countries.
It's a mid-cap company with a market cap of $7.9 billion.
On July 31, 2025, Eastman reported second quarter 2025 earnings and missed on the Zacks Consensus by $0.12. Earnings were $1.60 versus the consensus of $1.72.
Revenue fell to $2.29 billion from $2.36 billion a year ago.
Net cash provided by operating activities fell to $233 million compared to last year at $367 million.
"As expected, the macroeconomic backdrop showed little signs of seasonal improvements across our end markets," said Mark Costa, CEO.
"In this context, we worked hard to mitigate tariff impacts on our global business through supply chain and commercial excellence," he added.
Eastman is only giving guidance on earnings for the quarter ahead, not for the full year. It guided under consensus for the third quarter at $1.25.
Given all the challenges it is facing, including a changing tariff landscape, it's not surprising that it is raising cash.
It expects to generate full-year operating cash flow of about $1 billion.
The quarterly dividend remains unchanged at $0.83 per share. It is yielding 4.9%.
Eastman's second quarter press release was bearish. It described how this is the fourth year of these challenging industry conditions.
It's not surprising that the analysts are bearish too.
4 estimates were cut for the third quarter, pushing the Zacks Consensus down to $1.33 from $1.83. This is slightly above the guidance of $1.25.
5 estimates were also cut for 2025 in the last 30 days. That has pushed the Zacks Consensus down to $6.16 from $7.18. That's an earnings decline of 21.9% as Eastman made $7.89 last year.
They are also bearish on 2026. 5 estimates were cut in the last month as well. The Zacks Consensus has fallen to $7.17 from $8.05 during that time.
A company will get the Zacks #5 (Strong Sell) when the analysts are cutting their earnings estimates.
Shares of Eastman have been falling in the last year.
But is it a value?
Eastman now trades with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) of just 11.1. But with earnings on the decline, and the industry still under pressure, it has more trap characteristics.
Stock investors interested in Eastman should keep watch for a turnaround in the earnings.
Astera Labs is benefiting from strong demand for Aries, Taurus and Scorpio product families. Second-quarter 2025 revenues jumped 149.7% year over year and 20% sequentially, driven by signal conditioning (primarily Aries and Taurus product lines) and switch fabric (Scorpio). Signal conditioning portfolio benefited from strong demand for PCIe scale-up and Ethernet scale-out connectivity applications in custom developed application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) platforms.
ALAB's Aries product family is benefiting from diversification across both GPU and custom ASIC-based systems for a variety of applications, including scale-up and scale-out connectivity. Aries 6 solution that supports PCIe 6 began a volume ramp within rack-scale merchant GPU-based systems during the second quarter of 2025. Continued deployment of AI and general-purpose systems at leading hyperscaler customers is benefiting the Taurus product lines.
Scorpio exceeded 10% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2025, making it the fastest ramping product line in the history of Astera Labs. Scorpio Fabric switches won multiple design wins in the reported quarter. ALAB continues to see strong demand for Scorpio P-Series and X-Series PCIe Fabric Switches. The company expects Scorpio X-Series to begin shipping for customized scale-up architectures in late 2025, with a shift to high-volume production over the course of 2026.
Astera Labs expects third-quarter 2025 revenues between $203 million and $210 million, suggesting an increase between 6% and 9% sequentially. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $206.7 million, indicating 82.8% growth from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.
Astera Labs faces stiff competition from the likes of Broadcom and Marvell Technology in the connectivity and high-speed interconnect domain.
Broadcom offers a broad portfolio of PCIe Switches that offer high performance with low latency and consume less power. These multi-purpose switches are highly flexible and configurable. Broadcom's next-generation switches for data centers feature ExpressFabric technology. Its latest Jericho4 helps the company offer a complete portfolio of networking solutions that includes the Tomahawk 6, Tomahawk Ultra and NICs.
Marvell benefits from strong demand for electro-optics products, custom AI silicon and next-generation switches. The growing adoption of 800-gig PAM products and 400ZR data center interconnect solutions is fueling top-line growth.
Astera Labs shares have appreciated 31.5% year to date, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector's return of 12.5% and the Zacks Internet Software industry's growth of 19.4%.
The ALAB stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 31.97X compared with the broader sector's 6.66X. Astera Labs has a Value Score of F.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings is pegged at $1.58 per share, up 17% over the past 30 days, suggesting 88.1% growth from fiscal 2024's reported figure.
Alphabet currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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