DE - Deere & Company
| Previous Close | 165.42 |
| Open | 164.14 |
| Bid | 164.32 x 800 |
| Ask | 167.16 x 1000 |
| Day's Range | 162.90 - 165.48 |
| 52 Week Range | 128.32 - 171.22 |
| Volume | 1,067,283 |
| Avg. Volume | 2,014,464 |
| Market Cap | 51.825B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.44 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 15.99 |
| EPS (TTM) | N/A |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 3.04 (1.84%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-09-27 |
| 1y Target Est | N/A |
- Simply Wall St.
Does Deere & Company's (NYSE:DE) CEO Pay Matter?
Sam Allen has been the CEO of Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) since 2009. This report will, first, examine the CEO...
- Zacks
Deere (DE) Up 15.1% Since Last Earnings Report: Can It Continue?
Deere (DE) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.
- Bloomberg
Pompeo Blames Iran for Drone Attack on Saudi Oil Industry
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo blamed Iran for a series of brazen attacks on a massive Saudi Aramco oil facility, saying there was no evidence the drones originated in Yemen as Tehran-backed rebels there claimed.Iran denied responsibility for the raids Saturday, which forced Saudi Arabia to slash its daily oil output in half.Pompeo tweeted after the White House confirmed that President Donald Trump offered support for Saudi Arabia’s self-defense in a call on Saturday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.Iran launched an “unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo said on Twitter after at least one Republican lawmaker urged the U.S. to respond in kind with a strike on Iranian oil facilities. He gave no evidence to back up that allegation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi and U.S. officials are investigating the possibility that cruise missiles were launched from Iraq, which is much closer than Yemen, and is home to a host of Iran-backed Shiite missiles. Pompeo said the U.S. will work with allies to ensure the energy market remains well supplied, echoing comments from the White House. He also called on all nations to “publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks.”Saudi Arabia, which is locked in multiple proxy wars with Iran in the Middle East trying to contain its widening influence, hasn’t blamed anyone for the assault on the oil facility. On Sunday, it was racing to restore oil production after state energy producer Saudi Aramco lost about 5.7 million barrels per day of output in the raids on the world’s biggest crude-processing facility and the kingdom’s second-biggest oil field.The attack intensified the volatility in the Persian Gulf region, which has been destabilized by a showdown between the U.S. and Iran over the 2015 nuclear deal. Frictions have mounted in the Gulf ever since Trump quit the deal last year and began reimposing harsh sanctions on Iran to try to force it to renegotiate a deal that would more broadly limit its nuclear and military ambitions.Iran has responded by rolling back some of its obligations under the accord, as the agreement allows parties to do when others pull away from their commitments. It’s also been accused of carrying out a number of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf region, charges it has denied.Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi rejected the latest U.S. allegations, saying such “blind and fruitless accusations and statements are unfathomable and meaningless.” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted, “Having failed at ‘max pressure,’ @SecPompeo’s turning to ‘max deceit.’”Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the strikes. A Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S. has been fighting for more than four years to try to vanquish the Houthis and restore Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to power. But the Houthis have proven more tenacious than the Saudis expected, withstanding four years of withering air attacks and fighting off better-armed forces with a disciplined insurgency. They’ve stepped up their drone and missile attacks on enemy forces and Saudi territory, and as the war has dragged on, thousands of civilians have died, millions have gone hungry, and al-Qaeda and Islamic State have mounted a resurgence.The U.S. “strongly condemns today’s attack on critical energy infrastructure,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an emailed statement that was also posted on Twitter. The U.S. government “is monitoring the situation and remains committed to ensuring global oil markets are stable.”France, which has been working with Iran to try to salvage its nuclear deal with world powers after the U.S. pulled out last year, condemned the attacks and expressed “total solidarity” with the kingdom.“Such actions can’t but aggravate the tensions and the risk of conflict in the region,” the French Foreign Ministry said. “It’s imperative they stop,” it added, without assigning blamed.Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a confidant of Trump, earlier urged a decisive U.S. response against Iranian targets.“It is now time for the U.S. to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment,” Graham of South Carolina said on Twitter. “Iran will not stop their misbehavior until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries.”(Updates with Zarif comments in sixth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Jordan Fabian.To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Jose Valero in New York at mvalero3@bloomberg.net;Nadeem Hamid in Washington at nhamid3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Sara MarleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- GuruFocus.com
5 Industrial Companies to Consider as Trade Talks Resume
Stocks are trading below Peter Lynch value Continue reading...
- Barrons.com
Caterpillar and Deere Are Among 7 Stocks to Track as Construction Activity Slows
There is more economic trouble brewing. This time the problem is U.S. construction. That is bad news for industrial stocks, particularly makers of back hoes, cranes and dump trucks.
- Benzinga
Wells Fargo Downgrades Deere And Caterpillar, Sees 'Likely Need To Cut Production Soon'
Wells Fargo analyst Andrew Casey downgraded Deere from Outperform to Market Perform and reiterated his $170 price target. Casey said his latest checks suggest the U.S. construction cycle is at or near its peak, and Deere and Caterpillar will likely face earnings pressure starting in 2020. Casey said single-digit growth in Caterpillar’s Resource Industries and slight compression in Energy and Transportation will not be able to make up for a softening U.S. construction equipment market.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Deere, AGCO, CNH, Nutrien and Mosaic
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Deere, AGCO, CNH, Nutrien and Mosaic
- TheStreet.com
Deere Slumps as Wells Fargo Issues a Downgrade
Deere fell Thursday after the stock of the the farm machinery maker was downgraded to market perform from outperform at Wells Fargo, which reiterated its $170 price target. The price target represents a 3% upside from the stock's previous closing price of $165.15. The stock was down 3.05% to $160.08 on Thursday..
- Bloomberg
Trump Rules Out Unilateral Move on Cutting Capital Gains Tax
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has decided against making an end-run around Congress to cut the tax on capital gains by indexing gains to inflation, the White House said on Wednesday evening.The decision was announced after a meeting earlier in the day between Trump and his economic advisers, where they discussed whether to move ahead with the tax break.“President Trump was thoroughly briefed on the complex economic, legal and regulatory issues, and concluded that at this time he does not feel enough of the benefits will go to the middle class,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.Some conservatives who have urged Trump to move forward with the plan said that despite the White House’s statement, the proposal is not completely off the table.The idea isn’t “dead,” said Ryan Ellis, a conservative tax lobbyist who is pushing for the change. In August, Trump reversed his position several times on whether he was considering the tax change.It’s “not like there is some other tax cut on the table,” added Ellis, who is the president of the Center for a Free Economy.Trump last month floated the idea of indexing capital gains to inflation or cutting payroll taxes as a way to jolt the U.S. economy, which has shown warning signs of a slowdown. But he later said that cutting capital gains taxes would be seen as “somewhat elitist” because it would benefit the wealthy.Most of the benefits would go to high-income households, with the top 1% receiving 86% of the benefit, according to estimates in 2018 by the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The policy could reduce tax revenue by $102 billion over a decade, the model found.The idea of cutting the tax on investments contrasts sharply with proposals from Democratic candidates vying to challenge the president next year that are largely aimed at more heavily taxing the wealthy.As 2020 re-election campaign gets underway, Trump has repeatedly blamed the Federal Reserve for suppressing the U.S. economy and has said his trade war with China has hurt the stock market’s performance. But cutting the capital gains tax affects few middle-class taxpayers and would do little to spur economic growth.Indexing capital gains would slash tax bills for investors when selling assets such as stock or real estate by adjusting the original purchase price so no tax is paid on appreciation tied to inflation.Trump has said he could allow indexing of capital gains without congressional approval, and that he’d only need a letter from the attorney general saying he had the authority.“We’ve been talking about indexing for a long time,” Trump said Aug. 20. “And many people like indexing and it could be done very simply.”But a day later, Trump indicated he was disinclined to make the move.“I’m not looking at doing indexing. And I haven’t been seriously looking at it,” he said. “It’s not something I love.”Revamping capital gains taxes through a rule or executive order likely would face legal challenges, a concern that reportedly prompted former President George H.W. Bush’s administration to drop a similar plan.To contact the reporters on this story: Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Laura Davison in Washington at ldavison4@bloomberg.net;Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Trade War Weighs on U.S. Agriculture, Brazil-Argentina Wins
Thanks to the trade war, China has reduced import of farm products from the U.S. But, agricultural producers in Brazil and Argentina seem to be gaining from the ongoing trade tussle.
- Investopedia
Morgan Stanley Sees 4 Stocks With Big Upside Even at Market's Peak
Despite general worries about stretched valuations in the market, Morgan Stanley sees the potential for big gains in these select stocks.
- Barrons.com
Deere’s Largest Shareholder, Bill Gates, Now Owns More Than 10%
The co-founder of Microsoft now owns more than 10% of the maker of tractors, trucks, and other heavy equipment. Gates bought more Deere shares in late August.
- TheStreet.com
Is Deere Finally Ready for an Upside Breakout?
Deere & Co. has been sprinting higher in recent weeks and it is getting closer to the highs of May and July as well as the highs of late 2017. In this daily bar chart of DE, below, we can see that prices have been in a wide upward sloping channel the past 12 months. The On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line has roughly followed prices higher the past year and it is close to making a new high for the move up.
- Zacks
Bonds, Apple Event, Uber and Lyft Bill & Buy Ciena Stock - Free Lunch
What's next for the Fed and increased corporate bond buying. Apple's (AAPL) highly anticipated event Tuesday. Aurora Cannabis (ACB) earnings. A California bill could shake up Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT). And why Ciena (CIEN) is a Zacks Rank 1 (Strong Buy) stock right now - Free Lunch
- Bloomberg
Bond Bonanza Gives Traders a Chance to Tidy Up
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The U.S. bond market is having a September to remember as far as debt sales are concerned. Investors ought to use this borrowing binge to their advantage.Investment-grade companies issued some $74 billion of debt last week, a record for any comparable period since at least 1972, and it looks as if an additional $35 billion is on the way in the coming days. More than $11 billion of asset-backed securities and commercial- and residential-mortgage debt is being pitched to investors, Bloomberg News’s Adam Tempkin reported. The leveraged-loan market has 12 bank meetings lined up, and a high-yield deal or two seems likely.Much of the focus of this borrowing spree has been on the companies themselves, and rightly so. After all, it’s not every day that a company like Deere & Co. can set a record for the lowest-yielding 30-year investment-grade corporate debt, or Apple Inc. issues long bonds despite holding more than $200 billion of cash and investment securities. As I’ve written before, companies’ decision-making is fairly simple: They see low yields, and they sell bonds. However, this should also be a time for investors to get introspective. Even with the wide swing in benchmark U.S. yields, spreads in corporate credit markets have remained remarkably steady. Since the start of August, yields have declined about 50 basis points on the 30-year Treasury and 40 points on the 10-year. Yet during that same period, the average investment-grade spread is up only 10 basis points. It’s roughly the same in the high-yield market, where spreads are below their 2019 average. Leveraged-loan prices have barely budged in recent weeks.In other words, there’s still time to clean up bond portfolios heading into the final months of 2019. I imagine it can be hard for investors to deviate from their strategies, considering the staggering total-return figures across debt markets this year. But looking at the gains in the context of recent history starts to paint a clearer picture:U.S. investment-grade corporate bonds: 13.7% (on pace for highest since 2009) U.S. high-yield bonds: 11.3% (highest since 2016) U.S. Treasuries: 8.4% (highest since 2011) U.S. leveraged loans: 6.4% (highest since 2016) U.S. mortgage-backed securities: 5.5% (highest since 2014) U.S. asset-backed securities: 4.3% (highest since 2011)Clearly, speculative-grade securities aren’t flying quite as high as they might initially appear. By contrast, the fact that the asset-backed securities index, stuffed with triple-A rated obligations, is quietly having its best year in recent memory indicates investors’ preference for higher-quality bonds.Of course, the blistering rally in investment-grade corporate bonds can’t be separated from the huge increase in negative-yielding debt worldwide. Its proliferation has created a conundrum for investors in Europe and Japan because even 10-year Treasuries yield less than zero after hedging for currency risk. But in both regions, the yield turns positive by picking up an average U.S. corporate bond. Tetsuo Ishihara, a U.S. macro strategist at Mizuho Securities USA who has his finger on the pulse of the Japanese markets, said in a recent report that he had heard “retail consensus in Japan is that the US 30y is heading to 0%” over the next several years. As a result, “US IG is also a target for both retail and wholesale.”Back in the U.S., some big money managers are advocating the “up in quality” trade (or, at least, voicing concerns about riskier securities). In a Financial Times Q&A about negative-yielding debt — with questions like “Is there a bubble in the bond market?” and “Will there be a damaging crash?” — JPMorgan Asset Management’s Bob Michele stressed that “Investors should improve the credit quality of their holdings and concentrate primarily on positive yielding investment grade rated bonds.” BlackRock Inc.’s Rick Rieder said the riskiest areas and those offering the least value are “loan markets, especially in sectors where credit quality and covenants are weak.” Daniel Ivascyn, group chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co., answered the same question by pointing to parts of the credit markets with deteriorating fundamentals and investor protections.None of this is to say that riskier debt will deliver imminent losses. In fact, high-quality sovereign debt was the big loser on Monday, with yields rising on Treasuries and German bunds ahead of a potentially hawkish European Central Bank meeting and amid speculation that Germany is considering a “shadow budget” to bolster public investments, providing a much-needed fiscal boost to its economy.The slow-but-steady economic growth since the financial crisis, combined with ever-accommodating central banks, has made reaching for yield the obvious trade. Sure, some energy companies crashed and burned along the way, and retailers have floundered, with discount merchandise chain Fred’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday and Forever 21 Inc. perhaps up next. Yet by and large, companies have endured during the longest expansion on record, aided by low interest rates. Fixed-income investors have been rewarded handsomely along the way. The reasons to believe that trend can’t last are beginning to pile up. There’s the yield curve, of course, which has been inverted for just about all of the past three months. But notably, as Shawn Donnan wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek, recession is becoming a reality in at least some corners of America, like manufacturing and agriculture. U.S. consumers have been a resilient part of the recovery, but as Komal Sri-Kumar noted in a Bloomberg Opinion column last week, their spending habits are hardly a leading indicator. And their outlook for the economy is slumping.Bond investors, who clearly fear nothing more than a liquidity crunch during a rush to the exits, probably shouldn’t wait to see whether recession fears were overblown or warranted. This month’s supply offers a convenient opportunity for them to tidy up their holdings and position for a time when making money in fixed income isn’t quite so easy. To contact the author of this story: Brian Chappatta at bchappatta1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brian Chappatta is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering debt markets. He previously covered bonds for Bloomberg News. He is also a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Failed Afghan Talks Underscore Trump’s Foreign Policy Setbacks
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump took the presidency vowing to bring his deal-making savvy to American foreign policy, yet his love for grand gestures and personal diplomacy has fallen short with North Korea, China and the Mideast.Now Afghanistan can be added to the list. In a series of tweets on Saturday night, the president dispatched with a secret plan to host Taliban and Afghan leaders at his Camp David retreat this weekend ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He wanted to talk directly with Taliban negotiators, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said Sunday on CBS, one of five TV interviews.“I want to look them in the eye,” the president said, according to his top diplomat. That would be reminiscent of his approach to China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, but with just over a year before the 2020 elections, Trump’s personal brand of diplomacy has few successes to point to.“So far, his foreign policy bluster has produced little,” said James Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “North Korea is not backing off nuclear weapons, Iran is proving resilient and defiant, and the ‘Deal of the Century’ looks more like a stillborn baby.”The White House rejects that assessment, saying that major foreign policy achievements have historically taken more than just months to pull together.“The president isn’t afraid to try and tackle hard problems whereas most politicians run away from them,” said Judd Deere, a White House deputy press secretary.The Afghanistan move capped a tough week. On Friday, the president’s envoy to North Korea talks said negotiations have been stalled for months. On Thursday, Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt announced his intention to depart; the vaunted Israeli-Palestinian peace plan he’s been working on has yet to be unveiled. The U.S.-China trade war drags on.Pompeo defended the president’s setbacks as signs of strength, the early price to pay for taking on intractable issues.“It’s going to take more than words,” Pompeo said. “He walked away in Hanoi from North Korea, they wouldn’t make a deal that made sense for America. He’ll do that with the Iranians. When the Chinese moved away from a trade agreement they promised they would make, he broke off those conversations too.”If the president wants to rack up some wins, here’s where he’ll have to shift the momentum.Afghanistan Trump campaigned on a vow to pull U.S. troops from intractable conflicts, a description exemplified by the Afghan war, where American forces have been mired for almost 18 years. But while Trump raised U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan early in his term to about 14,000, the Taliban forces are now at their strongest levels since being ousted from power a generation ago. Even many Republicans fear that a withdrawal could give the fundamentalist group a pathway to power, or allow al-Qaeda or Islamic State to regroup.U.S. strategy “appears to be let’s get the best deal that we can, making perfectly clear that we’re getting out irrespective of what precisely that deal looks like,” Richard Fontaine, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, said at an event in Washington on Monday.For now, the administration says, talks are over and the U.S. envoy brokering the would-be deal, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been recalled to Washington. Pompeo said the administration will keep working hard to forge an agreement, but Trump may have to decide if he starts a draw-down without winning any Taliban concessions.North KoreaAfter a year of heightening tensions over North Korean missile and nuclear tests in 2017, Trump made a historic gamble to meet Kim Jong Un in Singapore. With a short, vague agreement in hand, the two leaders went on to have two more meetings. They met in Vietnam in February, and in June, Trump stepped across the border into North Korea for a brief time, the first American president to do so. Since then? Nothing.Trump’s special envoy for North Korea talks, Stephen Biegun, said Friday he’s ready to engage, “but we cannot do this by ourselves.” Since the last Trump-Kim meeting, North Korea has ignored U.S. entreaties to negotiate and has instead conducted a wave of short-range missile tests banned by the United Nations, while complaining about U.S.-South Korea military exercises. With the two sides unable to reach an agreement on what “denuclearization” even means, analysts say Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile production has continued.Middle East PeaceA day before his inauguration, Trump tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with producing the “deal of the century”: peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Kushner labored in secret, shuttling across the Mideast with the president’s former top lawyer at the Trump Organization, Jason Greenblatt.On Thursday, with the peace plan yet to come, Greenblatt said he intends to step aside in the near future, although he’s expected to stay at the White House at least until the plan is revealed. Over two years, Trump made a series of concessions that bolstered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda -- including moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights -- while doing nothing to lure Palestinians to the table. The administration said a peace plan is still forthcoming, but Palestinians have already ruled out talks with Trump’s team.IranMore than a year after Trump quit the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the Islamic Republic is feeling the pain of ever-tightening sanctions. But that hasn’t been enough to force them back to the negotiating table, as Trump says he wants, and the U.S. has won little support for its “maximum pressure” campaign.American allies have been so alarmed at the administration’s approach -- even as they decry Iranian behavior in the Middle East -- that they’ve largely declined to join a U.S.-led initiative to strengthen security in the waters of the Persian Gulf, a bottleneck for global oil supplies. When Trump did reach out to allies -- saying he’d back French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to extend a “letter of credit” to Iran, secured by oil -- his aides quickly walked those comments back.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Trump could still meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly gathering in New York later this month, but Iranian leaders have said they aren’t interested in a “photo op,” a veiled reference to the president’s three meetings with Kim.ChinaTrade wars are “easy to win,” Trump has said, but so far winning has been scarce when it comes to China. Expectations are low for a round of trade talks expected to take place in early October. That’s left the latest round of U.S. and Chinese tariffs in place, with the U.S. poised to raise various levies on Oct. 1 and on Dec. 15, when China plans additional tariffs as well.With a stalemate continuing, Trump’s aides have argued he has the power to force American companies to leave China, as he suggested in August. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund estimates that the current and upcoming tariffs will shave about 0.8% off global gross domestic product growth in 2020.VenezuelaU.S. efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro early this year appeared to have momentum, with more than 50 nations recognizing National Assembly leader Juan Guaido and, initially, cutting contacts with Maduro’s regime. But that momentum has stalled. Venezuelans have suffered under brutal inflation and a scarcity of basic goods and medicine, despite living in a country with the world’s biggest oil reserves. Maduro has maintained the military’s support and efforts to rally the often-divided opposition in the streets have fizzled.(Adds analyst’s comments in Afghanistan section)\--With assistance from David Wainer.To contact the reporters on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net;Glen Carey in Washington at gcarey8@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Thomson Reuters StreetEvents
Edited Transcript of DE earnings conference call or presentation 16-Aug-19 2:00pm GMT
Q3 2019 Deere & Co Earnings Call
- TipRanks
5 Industrial Stocks to Buy Now For 2025, Says RBC Capital
Are you ready for a new industrial revolution? According to RBC Capital, artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous transportation and cloud technology could completely transform the industrial marketplace within the next 5-10 years. As a result, the firm has just put together a report of some of the most promising industrial stocks taking advantage of these critical trends. These are the stocks that RBC believes will be leading the way come 2025.“Our call to action is this: with the pace of change accelerating, Industrials stakeholders must place increased focus beyond the next few quarters and into the years ahead” wrote the firm on September 5. With this in mind, let’s leave behind the current market turmoil and take a closer look at a few of the top industrial stock picks highlighted by RBC Capital’s latest 2025 report: 1\. General Motors Company (GM)In 2016, GM began preparing for the future of mobility by acquiring Cruise Automation, a self- driving vehicle startup. At the time, Cruise was developing hardware and software that would allow a vehicle to drive autonomously on the highway, and had been working on technology that would allow a vehicle to be fully autonomous. While Cruise is the company’s highest profile initiative, GM has looked to AI for other areas of their business as well. For instance, with IBM (IBM) they rolled out AI to their OnStar program, which gives them the capability of identifying information about the car and its surroundings. As an example, when fuel is low, the AI can route the vehicle to a nearby station and signal to the pump to activate and pay for the fuel.What’s more, RBC Capital believes the robo-taxi opportunity will grow exponentially through 2050. “GM is an automotive leader in the robo-taxi opportunity. This opportunity allows them to shift from selling units to miles. Selling miles could be a larger TAM [total addressable market] with higher profit, and reduced cyclicality. These factors could lead to a re-rating” cheers RBC Capital analyst Joseph Spak. In fact, this five-star analyst currently has a buy rating on GM with a $52 price target (37% upside potential). The Street also has a bullish Strong Buy consensus on GM right now: 2\. Albemarle Corp (ALB)If you are looking to play the electric vehicle trend but from a slightly different angle, then Albemarle is a great stock to consider. This chemicals giant is the 1 global producer of lithium which will be used heavily in electric vehicle (EV) batteries for at least the next decade. RBC Capital’s Arun Viswanathan singles out Albemarle as one of the companies best positioning and reinvesting to win in 2025. He has a buy rating on the stock with a price target of $83 (35% upside potential).Demand for lithium-ion batteries is growing at an exciting rate, says Viswanathan, driven by the global demand for electric vehicles, mobile devices and grid storage. “We believe lithium batteries will play a key role in advancing EVs, autonomous driving and reducing air pollution” he tells investors. And as the EV industry evolves, battery requirements will also need to evolve to address great safety needs and range specifications. Auto OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), suppliers and technology companies are going to need to collaborate in order to make autonomous vehicles a reality. These ambitious projects require the work of the collective minds and expertise to be completed says Viswanathan. And that’s where Albemarle comes in: “This is why we like companies such as Albemarle, which embraces the opportunity to build mutually beneficial relationships with business partners and local communities. As the next generation of autonomous driving and AI capabilities are developed, we would expect the chemical companies such as ALB and the coatings companies to have a higher degree of collaboration and exchange of ideas” the analyst writes. The stock has a Moderate Buy Street consensus, based on the last three-months of ratings. 3\. Xylem Inc (XYL)Smart water networks represent the biggest growth opportunity within the global water sector, says RBC Capital. Global water infrastructure is currently under strain from aging equipment, and there’s an urgent need for investment and improved management. The solution to this dilemma is known as smart water networks. Using connected devices, the Internet of Things and IT, municipalities can improve monitoring and diagnostics, optimize investments and ensure better infrastructure care. “No water company has advanced smart water networks and solutions more capably or aggressively than Xylem, in our view” comments RBC’s Deane Dray. This top-rated analyst recently reiterated his XYL buy rating with an $83 price target (10% upside potential).Indeed, Xylem has stated that nearly 50% of its revenues are now either smart or smart-enabled, thanks to its landmark acquisition of Sensus and disruptive Advanced Infrastructure Analytics (AIA) platform. Looking ahead management expects organic revenue growth for AIA to outpace the rest of its portfolio by at least 2x over the long-term, implying a double-digit pace of growth.For instance, its new specialized buoys in the water off of JFK and LGA airports are equipped with water test equipment to detect jet fuel spills and de- icing chemicals. Another example: A private utility in Singapore was experiencing leaks and breaks and was unable to determine the cause. Using Xylem’s high sample rate pressure sensors and analytics, the utility was able to discover and fix the problem, generating significant savings. Overall, the Street has a Moderate Buy consensus on XYL. 4\. Aptiv PLC (APTV)Next comes Aptiv- a global auto parts company based in Ireland. “We continue to believe Aptiv is a leader and key enabler of autonomous driving” enthuses RBC's Joseph Spak. The company snapped up self-driving specialist Ottomatika (a Carnegie Mellon spin-off and winner of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge) in 2015. In 2017, GM also splashed out on nuTonomy, a leading developer of autonomous driving software solutions- further strengthening its position in the global autonomous mobility market. While the autonomous mobility on-demand opportunity is still in its early days, Aptiv expects initial driverless tests to occur by the end of 2020, with increased scale as hardware becomes automotive grade in 2025. Management has indicated they believe Aptiv’s autonomous driving revenue will be $500mm by 2025. At scale, the company expects 70%-80% of its autonomous mobility revenue to come from recurring revenue streams.As a result, Spak concludes: “The company has positioned the portfolio to be a key supplier for the signal and power architecture needed in vehicles of the future, autonomous driving and connectivity. Aptiv is also adopting new business models and is one of the first companies to show real- world monetization of their autonomous vehicle investment.”In a July 31 report aptly titled ‘The Cream Rises to the Top’ the analyst reiterated his buy rating on Aptiv while ramping up the price target from $88 to $97 (15% upside potential). Analysts rate the stock Moderate Buy, according to the Street consensus. 5\. Deere & Company (DE)Recent UN estimates indicate one in nine people experienced chronic hunger in 2018 with the total global population continuing to grow. To help meet rising food requirements while coping with limited natural resources, the firm believes smart farming will become increasingly important. “We expect the trend toward “smart farming” -- including AI/machine learning -- to accelerate as farmers search for ways to maximize productivity/yield, improve crop quality, and reduce costs/improve machine uptime in the face of relatively low commodity prices and stressed natural resources (land/water)” writes the firm’s Seth Weber. This can include everything from using drones to spray crops, to generating crop insights from advanced data analysis.He continues: “We see Deere as well positioned for this trend.” Indeed, Weber currently has a buy rating on DE with a $175 price target (15% upside potential). In particular, the analyst expects that farming machinery, like cars, will become increasingly autonomous. This should reduce the need for farm workers, while improving productivity. So far GPS guidance and assisted steering have been widely available in tractors, but self-driving systems have remained elusive. As Weber notes, John Deere built its first autonomous navigation system in the 1990s with NASA, and much more recently unveiled an autonomous tractor at the CES 2019 conference.However, regulatory hurdles and gaining comfort with unmanned equipment are potential challenges- so watch this space. Overall the Street has a cautiously optimistic take on DE right now:Discover the Street’s favorite ‘Strong Buy’ stocks with TipRanks’ Stock Screener
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