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Chicago, IL – January 30, 2026 – Zacks Equity Research shares Intuitive Surgical, Inc. ISRG, as the Bull of the Day and KB Home KBH as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on —AngloGold Ashanti plc AU, Kinross Gold Corp. KGC and Newmont Corp. NEM.
Here is a synopsis of all three stocks:
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. is expected to grow earnings by the double digits in 2026 and 2027. This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) is still the industry leader in robotic-assisted surgery.
Intuitive Surgical is the pioneer in robotic-assisted, minimally invasive surgery. It manufactures and markets the da Vinci surgical system around the world.
On Jan 22, 2026, Intuitive Surgical reported its fourth quarter 2025 earnings and it beat on the Zacks Consensus for the twelfth quarter in a row. Earnings were $2.53 compared to the Zacks Consensus of $2.25, for a beat of $0.28.
Worldwide procedures of both da Vinci and Ion grew about 18% year-over-year. Da Vinci procedures rose 17% and Ion procedures grew 44%.
The company placed 532 da Vinci surgical systems in the quarter, up from 493 in the fourth quarter of 2024.
It’s da Vinci surgical system installed base grew to 11,106 systems as of Dec 31, 2025, up 12% compared with 9,902 systems at the end of 2024. It grew the Ion endoluminal system installed base to 995 systems, up 24% compared with 805 systems as of Dec 31, 2024.
Fourth quarter revenue jumped 19% to $2.87 billion from $2.41 billion a year ago. It was boosted by growth in procedure volume, higher da Vinci system placements, and an increase in the installed base of systems.
Intuitive Surgical has been one of the top growth stocks for over 20 years.
For the 2026 outlook, Intuitive Surgical said that worldwide da Vinci procedure growth would be in the range of 13% to 15%. That’s below the 2025 growth of 18%.
The analysts, however, liked what they saw for the fourth quarter of 2025 and are bullish on both 2026 and 2027.
Eight estimates are higher, and one lower, in the last week for 2026. It has pushed the Zacks Consensus up to $10.01 from $9.61 in that period. That’s earnings growth of 12.1% as the company made $8.93 in 2025.
2027 looks similar. Six estimates were revised higher in the last 7 days, pushing up the 2027 Zacks Consensus Estimate to $11.33 from $11.00. That’s another 13.3% earnings growth.
Intuitive Surgical shares are up 103% over the last 5 years, beating the S&P 500 return of 87%. However, over the last year, shares have lagged the S&P 500.
Could this be a buying opportunity?
Intuitive Surgical is not a cheap stock on a price-to-earnings (P/E) basis. It has never been. You are buying it for the growth.
It trades with a forward P/E of 52, even with the shares being weak in 2026. It’s PEG ratio, which measures growth and value, isn’t any better. It’s PEG is 3.3, which is a little stretched.
But no other competitors have been able to break the lock of the da Vinci system on robotic-assisted surgery. The company continues to grow earnings in the double digits.
For investors who always wanted to buy Intuitive Surgical, this share weakness is providing an opportunity. Be sure to keep it on your watch list.
KB Home continues to face challenging market conditions in the housing market. This Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) is expected to see another year of declining earnings.
KB Home is one of the largest homebuilders in the United States. It operates in 49 markets and has built nearly 700,000 homes over the last 65 years.
On Dec 18, 2025, KB Home reported its fourth quarter 2025 earnings and beat on the Zacks Consensus for the third quarter in a row.
Earnings were $1.92 versus the Zacks Consensus of $1.79.
The company said it met most of its goals for the fourth quarter even as the housing market conditions remained challenging due to lower consumer confidence.
Homes delivered fell 9% to 3,619 in the quarter and average selling price declined 7% to $465,600.
The housing gross profit margin fell to 17% compared to 20.9% in the year ago quarter, reflecting price reductions, higher relative land costs and geographic mix.
For the year, homes delivered fell 9% to 12,902. Revenue also fell to $6.24 billion from $6.93 billion in 2024.
The housing market continues to struggle. Net orders fell 10% to 2,414 orders in the fourth quarter. KB Home’s ending backlog totaled 3,128 homes, compared to 4,434 homes.
KB Home had total liquidity of $1.43 billion, including $228.6 million of cash and cash equivalents, and nearly $1.2 billion of available capacity under its upsized unsecured revolving credit facility with various banks, with no cash borrowings outstanding.
Many believed that the housing market might recover in 2026, but KB Home’s guidance for the first quarter doesn’t seem to indicate that.
Deliveries are expected in the range of 2,300 to 2,500 homes.
The housing gross profit margin is also expected to fall from the fourth quarter to the range of 15.4% to 16%.
The analysts are bearish. Five estimates were cut in the last 60 days for 2026, with two cut in the prior 30 days.
The 2026 Zacks Consensus has sunk to $4.14 from $4.55 in the last 30 days and is down from $6.33 in the last 60 days.
That’s a decline of 36.5% as KB Home made $6.52 in 2025.
It’s the second year in a row of declining earnings. Here’s what it looks like on the price and consensus chart.
Over the last year, the shares have underperformed the S&P 500.
But they haven’t completely broken down yet as the earnings have.
The stock is cheap, with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) of 14. A P/E under 15 is usually considered a value.
KB Home is also shareholder friendly. In Oct 2025, the board of directors authorized a share repurchase of up to $1 billion.
In the fourth quarter, it repurchased $100 million worth of shares and has $900 million remaining on the current authorization. In its 2026 guidance, KB Home said it would do common stock repurchases of $50 million to $100 million.
The company also pays a dividend of $1.00, which is yielding 1.7%.
But the earnings are still sinking.
Investors interested in the homebuilders might want to wait until the earnings outlook turns around before diving in.
AngloGold Ashanti plc is executing a clear strategy of pursuing organic and inorganic growth. It closed the Augusta Gold Corp. acquisition on Oct. 25, boosting its footprint in the Beatty District of Nevada, which is in one of the most significant emerging gold districts in the United States. The deal adds a construction-ready, feasibility-stage project, the Reward project, to AngloGold Ashanti’s portfolio. Expansion strategy remained one of the key priorities for AngloGold Ashanti in 2025.
The company’s Brownfields exploration focuses on adding value to existing mines, targeting low-risk, high-return growth and life-extension opportunities. As part of the Brownfields exploration, AngloGold Ashanti is moving forward with exploration at Geita and Sukari for mine life extensions.
AU is moving forward with its investment strategy, with additional capital expenditure approved for this year at its Geita Gold Mine in Tanzania. AU has also planned $100 million investments over the next three years for the expansion of the mine. The company will raise annual exploration spend at the mine from around $35 million to $50 million. The ongoing investment aims to increase Geita’s mineral reserves by about 60%, which will extend the mine life from seven years to at least a decade by 2028.
Obuasi remains a significant pillar of its long-term strategy, which is expected to deliver 400,000 ounces of annual production at competitive costs by 2028. At the Siguiri mine, efforts are underway to improve mining volumes through ongoing improvements to fleet availability and utilization, and to introduce gravity recovery in the processing plant to further improve metallurgical recovery.
Kinross Gold Corp. is progressing well with its Advanced Exploration program at Great Bear in Ontario. Kinross Gold already completed and commissioned a natural gas pipeline. The company is currently moving ahead with the Main Project's detailed engineering, procurement and exploration.
Kinross Gold’s investment here will include working on mills, TSF and infrastructure. Exploration is also ongoing, with the company targeting new mineralization.
Newmont Corp.is progressing with several growth projects, such as Ahafo North expansion in Ghana and the Cadia Panel Caves and Tanami Expansion 2 in Australia. Recently, Newmont achieved commercial production at the Ahafo North project. Ahafo North is expected to produce between 275,000 and 325,000 ounces of gold annually over a mine life of 13 years. Newmont expects its growth projects to expand production capacity and extend mine life.
AngloGold Ashanti’s stock has appreciated a whopping 331.8% in a year, outperforming the Zacks Mining – Gold industry’s 176.9% rally. During this time, the Basic Materials sector has risen 50.9%, whereas the S&P 500 has grown 19.1%.
AngloGold Ashanti is currently trading at a forward 12-month earnings multiple of 16.65X, slightly discounted compared with the industry average of 14.62X. The stock has a Value Score of A.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AU’s 2025 sales is pegged at $9.85 billion, indicating a 70.1% year-over-year surge. The consensus mark for the year’s earnings stands at $5.59 per share, suggesting a year-over-year upsurge of 152.9%.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 sales implies 22.5% year-over-year growth. The same for earnings indicates growth of 41.3%. EPS estimates for 2025 have moved south, while the same for 2026 have been trending north over the past 60 days, as seen in the chart below.
AU currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank 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/performance for 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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