Coherent and Beazer Homes Featured as Zacks' Bull and Bear of the Day
Coherent's Growth and Innovations: Coherent Corp. is experiencing significant growth, with projected revenues doubling to $6.7 billion by June 2026, driven by demand for optical solutions in AI and data centers. The company has also expanded its partnership with Apple to supply technology for Face ID features in iPhones.
Beazer Homes' Struggles: Beazer Homes is facing challenges, reporting a decline in revenue and a 19% reduction in EPS estimates for FY'26. Despite a slight revenue surprise, the company is under pressure as key performance metrics show mixed results.
Visa's Cross-Border Business Performance: Visa Inc. is benefiting from a strong cross-border business, with significant growth in international travel and e-commerce. The company is focusing on enhancing its cross-border payment capabilities, including integrating stablecoin functionality.
Competitors' Performance: Mastercard and PayPal are also seeing growth in their cross-border businesses, with Mastercard reporting a 15% increase in volumes and PayPal achieving an 8% rise in total payment volume year-over-year.
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- Acquisition Overview: Visa is set to acquire Argentina-based Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay, which provide credit, debit, and prepaid card processing and real-time payment services, respectively, with the transaction expected to close in Visa's fiscal second quarter of 2026, marking a significant expansion in the Latin American market.
- Accelerated Technology Deployment: This acquisition will enable Visa to accelerate the deployment of advanced technologies such as tokenization, biometric authentication, intelligent risk tools, and agentic commerce solutions, thereby enhancing its competitiveness and market share in the digital payments sector.
- Market Opportunities: Visa CEO Ryan McInerney stated that this acquisition is a crucial step for Visa in Argentina, with expectations to significantly boost digital payment adoption and modernize financial services and infrastructure across the country.
- Regional Strategy: Gabriela Renaudo, Visa's country manager for Argentina and the Southern Cone, highlighted that the acquisition will create substantial market opportunities for Visa in Argentina, further solidifying its leadership position in the Latin American fintech landscape.
- Successful Strategic Transformation: Advent International's sale of Prisma and Newpay successfully separates the group into three independent platforms while retaining Payway, demonstrating its deep strategic vision and positioning in the Argentine payments market.
- Significant Transaction Scale: The transaction involves Prisma and Newpay, with Prisma processing over six billion transactions annually, establishing itself as a trusted partner for Argentina's leading banks and highlighting its critical role in payment infrastructure.
- Accelerated Payment Innovation: Newpay facilitates real-time account-to-account payments and QR payments, managing bill payments for over 7,500 companies, and is expected to drive further digital payment adoption and innovation through its integration with Visa.
- Future Growth Potential: As a standalone platform, Payway will continue to expand high-value merchant solutions, with expectations to deepen merchant relationships and increase recurring revenues as digital payment adoption accelerates.
- Strategic Acquisition: Visa has announced its acquisition of Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay in Argentina, aiming to enhance payment solution innovation by integrating both companies' technology platforms with Visa's global network, thereby accelerating the adoption of digital payments.
- Technology Integration: Prisma provides credit, debit, and prepaid card processing services, while Newpay operates real-time payment services and bill payment platforms, and their combination will enhance payment speed and security for consumers, strengthening Visa's competitive position in the Argentine market.
- Market Opportunities: Visa executives noted that this investment will drive the adoption of digital payments and modernize financial services infrastructure in Argentina, reflecting Visa's commitment to the country's economic growth and aiming to enhance its competitiveness in global commerce.
- Transaction Timeline: The transaction is expected to close in Visa's fiscal second quarter of 2026, pending closing conditions, and once completed, it will lay the groundwork for Visa's expansion in the Latin American market.
- Data Platform Advantage: CoStar's commercial data platform, built on nearly four decades of data collection and a 93% renewal rate, creates a deep lock-in effect that is difficult to replicate; despite its stock price being nearly halved in the past six months, its commercial core remains robust.
- Residential Investment Dilemma: CoStar invested $850 million into Homes.com in 2025, resulting in a net operating loss, and although management plans to cut over $300 million in investment, breakeven for this segment is not expected until 2030.
- Margin Improvement: The information and marketplace segment achieved a 47% profit margin in Q3 2025, up 400 basis points year-over-year, driven by a 23% increase in CRE transaction volume, showcasing the strength of its core business.
- Stock Buyback Plan: CoStar's board authorized a $1.5 billion stock buyback and holds $942 million in net cash, with the stock currently trading at about 23 times the 2026 EBITDA forecast, indicating relative attractiveness.
- Earnings Release Announcement: Akamai Technologies is set to release its Q4 earnings after the market closes on February 19, with analysts projecting earnings per share of $1.75, an increase from $1.66 in the same quarter last year, indicating sustained improvement in profitability.
- Revenue Growth Expectations: Analysts anticipate Akamai's quarterly revenue to reach $1.08 billion, up from $1.02 billion a year earlier, reflecting the company's positive performance amid recovering market demand.
- Strategic Partnership for Security: On December 17, Akamai partnered with Visa to enhance identity verification and user recognition, a move that is expected to bolster its competitive edge in the agentic commerce sector.
- Stock Price Increase: Akamai shares rose 0.8% to close at $109.31 on Wednesday, suggesting market optimism regarding the upcoming earnings report and reflecting investor confidence in the company's future growth.
- Program Overhaul Context: United Airlines is significantly revamping its MileagePlus program to reward high-spending customers, effective April 2, marking the largest change in over a decade and reflecting the airline's efforts to differentiate itself in a competitive market.
- Mileage Reward Changes: Customers holding United credit cards will earn 6 miles per dollar spent on tickets, while those without the card will see their earnings drop to 3 miles, significantly enhancing the value proposition for credit card users and encouraging card adoption.
- Redemption Rate Discounts: Cardholders will now redeem miles at a discount of at least 10%, for instance, an economy-class ticket that costs 15,000 miles will now be available for 13,500 miles, incentivizing more customers to apply for the credit card to maximize their travel value.
- Elite Customer Benefits: Cardholders with elite MileagePlus Premier status will receive deeper discounts, with long-haul business class seats dropping from 200,000 miles to 170,000 miles, further enhancing loyalty and satisfaction among high-value customers.









