Victoria's Secret and Flower Foods have been highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – December 11, 2025 – Zacks Equity Research shares Victoria’s Secret & Co. VSCO as the Bull of the Day and Flowers Foods FLO as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Oracle ORCL, Adobe Systems ADBE and Synopsys SNPS.

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks.

Bull of the Day:

The market may be stuck somewhere between “slow grind” and “emotional rollercoaster,” but that doesn’t mean you stop hunting for relative strength. Eventually the noise dies down, the dust settles, and good old-fashioned earnings start doing the talking again. That’s exactly where today’s Bull of the Day steps in, strutting down the runway with something investors haven’t seen in a while: accelerating fundamentals.

I’m talking about Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) Victoria’s Secret & Co. This isn’t the Victoria’s Secret turnaround story you remember from a few years ago. This is the next chapter, a leaner, sharper, more disciplined Victoria’s Secret. And analysts are finally starting to respect the pivot.

Recent earnings lit the spark. VSCO came through with a clean beat, but the bigger story is what happened next. Analysts started raising estimates. That’s the lifeblood of the Zacks Rank, and the revisions trend here is undeniably bullish. Over the last sixty days, four analysts have increased their numbers for both the current year and next year.

The bullish moves have pushed up our Zacks Consensus Estimates for the current year from $2.01 to $2.38 while next year’s number is up from $2.08 to $2.50. This is what we look for. Not just “cheap.” Not just “beaten down.” We want earnings trends moving in the right direction.

Victoria's Secret & Co. price-consensus-chart | Victoria's Secret & Co. Quote

VSCO has emerged as a leaner retailer with real tailwinds. The company has already done the hard work. They’ve streamlined operations, tightened inventory, re-focused product strategy and improved margins while reinvigorating brand collaborations and digital engagement.

The result? A retailer that isn’t trying to be everything to everyone, just extremely good at what it does. With improved merchandise performance and more efficient cost controls, profitability is turning the corner. That’s why analysts are no longer just tiptoeing back, they’re walking with conviction.

Despite this momentum, the stock isn’t priced like a winner yet. It still trades as if the turnaround is theoretical rather than underway. That disconnect between earnings revisions and share price is exactly where savvy investors strike. Think of it like being early to a sample sale, you’re getting runway-quality merchandise at clearance pricing.

Bear of the Day:

Sometimes the market gives you a gentle nudge… and sometimes it smacks you upside the head with a loaf of bread. Unfortunately for shareholders of Flowers Foods,maker of Nature’s Own, Wonder Bread, Dave’s Killer Bread, and other pantry staples, the bakery aisle has gotten a little stale. And when earnings trends start going flat, the Zacks Rank doesn’t sugarcoat it.

Today’s Bear of the Day is Flowers Foods, currently carrying a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). You’d think a bread company would be steady as they come. I mean, Americans don’t just stop eating sandwiches. But that’s the trap. When demand is predictable, cost pressures hit harder, and margin compression becomes a recurring theme. That’s exactly what analysts are reacting to right now.

Over the last 60 days, we’ve seen multiple downward revisions to both current-year and next-year earnings estimates. That’s the kiss of death in the Zacks Rank model. When analysts pull back, the rank follows suit, and FLO has slipped all the way to the bottom. The bearish moves have dropped our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year by a penny while next year’s number is off from $1.08 to $1.01.

The real issue here is, there is no growth catalyst. Investors are willing to forgive short-term hiccups if there’s a growth story behind the scenes. But FLO is facing lackluster top-line growth, pricing power that’s starting to wane, consumer trade-down toward cheaper private labels, as well as rising promotional intensity across grocery aisles

When your product competes primarily on price and convenience, inflation becomes your worst enemy. Retailers push back. Consumers shop around. And branded bread gets squeezed from both sides. That’s why analysts aren’t just neutral, they’re actively lowering expectations.

The Food – Miscellaneous industry is in the Bottom 19% of our Zacks Industry Rank.

Additional content:

A Dovish Message in a Hawkish Rate Cut

As it turns out, the stock market loved Wednesday’s Fed announcement about a 25 bps rate cut. The small-cap Russell 2000 zoomed to a new all-time-high close, while the S&P 500 came within 5 points of its own all-time high. Bond yields, which had ratcheted up to +4.2% on the 10-year, were back down again by the press conference following the Fed statement. There’s now a 60 basis-point (bps) spread between 2-year and 10-year bond yields, for the first time in recent memory.

The Dow climbed +497 points on the day, +1.05%, while the S&P was +46, +0.67%. The Nasdaq was the laggard, only up 77 points or +0.33%, and the Russell gained +33 points, +1.32%. Markets closed off their session highs, ultimately, but there is no question this mini-rally was spurred following the Fed release. Year to date, markets are up +12% (Dow) to +22.5% (Nasdaq).

Notes on Yesterday’s FOMC Meeting

For a Fed meeting that was well telegraphed and reported-on in advance, Wednesday’s announcement following the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting did provide some surprises. We did see a -25 basis-point (bps) cut to the Fed funds rate to a range of 3.50-3.75%, but we saw three dissents from the official policy decision for the first time in six years: Chicago Fed President Goolsbee and Kansas City Fed President Schmid voted for no cut this time around, whereas Fed Governor Stephen Miran — on loan from the Trump White House — voted again for a 50 bps cut.

The other, seemingly bigger, surprise is that the augmentation to the Fed balance sheet has now come sooner and at a higher rate than expected. Starting Friday, the Fed will be purchasing $40 billion in Treasury bills, maintaining its balance sheet with an “ample level of reserves.” This “QE adjacent” move was earlier expected to net $20-30 billion in assets beginning some time after the start of the year, so it is a dovish move within what’s being called a hawkish cut.

The Fed’s outlook for 2026 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) moves up half a percentage point to +2.4% currently, with the Inflation Rate predicted to tick down 10 bps to +2.5%, and +2.1% for 2027. As such, 11 Fed members now advocate one rate cut or fewer for all of next year, with seven members in favor of no cuts at all. The conspicuous Miran, on the other hand, advocated a +2.12% Fed funds rate a year from now — 125 basis points in cuts in 2026.

In his press conference, Powell suggested that the current Fed funds rate is within range of the overall neutral rate of inflation. From the top interest rate levels back in September of 2024, the Fed has reduced by -175 bps. Powell referred to the Fed being “well positioned” several times in terms of its preparation to deal with current economic conditions going forward. In all, it was a dovish message from what was largely expected to be a hawkish cut yesterday afternoon.

Earnings Results After the Close: ORCL, ADBE, SNPS

Oracle posted fiscal Q2 earnings results after Wednesday’s closing bell with mixed results: earnings of $2.26 per share was a big beat over the $1.63 in the Zacks consensus, while revenues of $16.1 billion were a bit shy of the $16.15 billion analysts were looking for. Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO), which had been a big positive surprise a quarter ago, continued to outperform expectations.

This RPO business, while providing lower margins for the company than other products and services, is nevertheless a gangbusters business these days. Taking in AI and cloud overruns for companies like Meta and NVIDIA rose +438% year over year, even higher than the Q3 tallies. Yet Oracle shares are trading down -3.8% in the after-market, ahead of the company’s conference call.

Adobe Systems benefited from strong adoption of its AI tools in its fiscal Q4, and resulted in solid beats on both top and bottom lines this afternoon. Earnings of $5.50 per share outpaced expectations of $5.39 (and well above the $4.81 per share reported a year ago) on $6.19 billion in revenues, bettering the $6.10 billion in the Zacks consensus estimate. Guidance for its Q1 was also raised. Shares are up +1% in late trading.

Synopsys also outpaced expectations in its fiscal Q4 results after yesterday’s close, with earnings of $2.90 per share on $2.26 billion in revenues improving on estimates for $2.79 per share and $2.25 billion, respectively. The company announced a $11.4 billion in backlog, and a big upward adjustment to next-quarter revenues are helping shares gain +5.5% in after-hours trading.

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