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New: Introducing “Why Is It Moving?” - lightning-fast, AI-driven explanations of stock moves
Chicago, IL – October 9, 2025 – Zacks Equity Research shares Montrose Environmental Group MEG as the Bull of the Day and Core Natural Resources CNR as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Alibaba BABA, Baidu BIDU and Amazon AMZN.
Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:
Sometimes the best stocks aren't the sexiest stocks. Sometimes they are in industries that nobody ever wants to talk about rather than the hot spots like AI and lithium. Today's Bull of the Day is one of these boring stocks in a boring industry. But, there's nothing boring about the profits the company is making or the regulatory tailwinds that are helping it along.
Today's Bull of the Day is Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) Montrose Environmental Group. Montrose isn't your average "testing" company. This is a full-stack environmental services platform that combines consulting, lab testing, air measurement, remediation, and now renewable energy solutions. Whether it's cleaning up PFAS ("forever chemicals"), monitoring methane, or helping industrial clients meet new EPA guidelines, Montrose is at the forefront of the sustainability megatrend.
The reason for the favorable Zacks Rank is that analysts have come out and increased their earnings estimates for the current year and next year. The bullish moves have pushed up our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year from 66 cents to $1.34 while next year's number is up from 83 cents to $1.36. That's not just noise. Montrose has quietly beaten earnings expectations in four consecutive quarters, with an average surprise of 15 cents. Revenue growth has remained resilient, expected to climb over 15% this year as industrial demand and regulatory enforcement accelerate.
While the market loves its AI darlings, the real alpha may come from the boring names doing the dirty work. Montrose operates in a sector insulated from economic downturns. Reality is nobody's cutting back on environmental compliance. In fact, as ESG scrutiny grows, Montrose's testing and remediation backlog is expanding.
The stock's technicals are also setting up nicely. It's come strong off the Liberation Day lows. Recently, the 50-day moving average has been providing a lot of support on the way up. Over the last few days, the stock has been bouncing along the 50-day, approaching the swing high just over $31.
Every now and then, a sector catches a tailwind so strong it lifts every name in the group, even the ones that don't deserve it. That's what's been happening in natural resources this year. Oil and gas plays, miners, and energy infrastructure stocks have all enjoyed a run thanks to rising commodity prices and renewed investor appetite for "real assets." But under the surface, not every name is pulling its weight.
Today's Bear of the Day is Core Natural Resources, a stock that's been lagging behind its peers despite the broader commodity rally. The company finds itself struggling with execution, inconsistent production volumes, and weakening profitability. That combination has analysts turning sour, and it's showing up in the Zacks Rank. CNR currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).
The reason for the unfavorable Zacks Rank is the recent negative earnings revisions coming from analysts. Our current year Zacks Consensus Estimate has tumbled from $5.37 to a loss of $1.10. Looking at next year, earnings estimates are off from $12.24 to $10.39. Granted, that is a huge amount of earnings growth coming down the pike. However, that comes on revenue growth of just 6.3% next year. This is also a stock that has run up from under $70 to $97 in a little over a month.
Core Natural Resources' biggest problem isn't top-line growth, right now it's profitability. The company has been facing higher input costs, operational inefficiencies, and tougher contract terms in several of its core basins. Add to that a debt load that's creeping higher due to capital spending on new projects, and you get an ugly balance sheet picture. Debt-to-equity now sits at a multi-year high, pressuring cash flow and limiting flexibility.
When analysts are cutting estimates, margins are shrinking, and debt is climbing, that's not a recipe for outperformance. Core Natural Resources finds itself on the wrong side of the commodity cycle at the worst possible time. Until the company can reverse the earnings revisions trend, investors may want to stay on the sidelines.
The Coal industry ranks in the Bottom 14% of our Zacks Industry Rank. There are no stocks within this industry that are in the good graces of our Zacks Rank.
Alibaba's growing commitment to artificial intelligence is shaping its growth narrative. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, AI-related product revenues maintained triple-digit growth for the eighth consecutive quarter, highlighting strong demand and the company's strong position in AI-powered cloud services. Management reiterated that AI remains a key driver of future performance, as Alibaba is implementing its 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) investment plan through 2027 to expand AI infrastructure.
At the recent Apsara Conference in September 2025, Alibaba unveiled a major wave of AI innovation, including next-generation Qwen3 models, the trillion-parameter Qwen3-Max and the Qwen3-Next architecture, all designed to strengthen cloud AI leadership. The company also previewed Wan 2.5, its advanced visual-generation model and introduced upgraded agent development platforms to accelerate enterprise adoption. These developments further strengthen Alibaba's goal of becoming a global AI powerhouse.
Further expanding its global footprint, Alibaba is establishing new data centers in Brazil, France and the Netherlands, with additional expansion planned in Mexico and Japan. A recent collaboration with Nvidia aims to advance "Physical AI," enabling breakthroughs in robotics and autonomous systems. Additionally, Alibaba's Model Studio platform now offers a high-code Agent Development Kit to simplify enterprise AI deployment and monetization.
Looking ahead, the Zacks Consensus Estimate projects consolidated revenues to grow 5% in fiscal 2026 and 12% in fiscal 2027, reflecting investor confidence in Alibaba's AI-led strategy. If implementation continues at this pace, the company's robust artificial intelligence efforts could actually lead to meaningful top-line growth in the coming years.
Baidu has intensified its AI competition with Alibaba through rapid innovation and integration. Baidu's upgraded ERNIE 4.5 and X1 reasoning models, supported by its 4-layer AI architecture, enhance efficiency and reduce inference costs. The company's Qianfan MaaS platform expands enterprise flexibility, while Baidu's Kunlun P800 chips lessen reliance on Nvidia. With its growing AI Cloud revenues and autonomous driving arm Apollo, Baidu is positioning itself as China's most comprehensive AI ecosystem, directly challenging Alibaba's cloud and model dominance.
Amazon is intensifying its AI competition with Alibaba through innovation across cloud, infrastructure and enterprise tools. Amazon's Bedrock platform integrates top models like Anthropic's Cloud with its own Nova family, while Amazon Q improves workplace automation. As AWS is a global leader, the company uses AI for logistics, recommendations and retail personalization. Custom chips like Trainium and Inferentia boost performance, reinforcing Amazon's dominance in scalable AI solutions and positioning it as a formidable rival to Alibaba's growing AI and cloud ambitions.
BABA shares have surged 113.8% in the year-to-date period, outperforming the Zacks Internet – Commerce industry and the Zacks Retail-Wholesale sector's growth of 10% and 6.8%, respectively.
From a valuation standpoint, BABA stock is currently trading at a forward 12-month Price/Earnings ratio of 19.61X compared with the industry's 24.11X. BABA has a Value Score of D.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $7.55 per share, down 2.2% over the past 30 days, implying a 16.2% year-over-year decline.
Alibaba currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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