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Spain, Italy impose tougher lockdown measures as COVID-19 cases surge New York Post Europe Imposes New Covid-19 Restrictions as Second Wave Accelerates The Wall Street JournalItaly Approves Partial Lockdown; Spain Sets National Curfew BloombergEurope, U.S. watch case totals grow, debate new restrictions WKRN News 2
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 While the novel coronavirus pandemic has upended several sectors, some industries are doing better than others. One such sector is tech. SPDR S&P Software & Services ETF (NYSEARCA:XSW) is up by 41.74% compared to the S&P 500, which is up by just 22.73%. One of the major contributors to this enormous success is Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) stock.
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Many will remember the company from the dot-com bubble burst in the late 1990s. Cisco stock reached some astronomical numbers during that time. And although it hasn't scaled those heights since, it is one of the most consistent stocks around, up approximately 33% over the last five years.
And why not? Cisco has an excellent balance sheet with very little debt. It also boasts excellent operating metrics, juicy dividend yield and is trading at a steep discount to the sector. With so much going for it, it's hard to argue against Cisco stock right now.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
Cisco Stock Is a Bargain
Although Cisco stock has recovered a bit from the drubbing it received at the height of the pandemic in March, shares are still trading at a 25.79% discount to the 52-week high of $50.28 per share. You can chalk that up to the global economic slowdown brought about by the pandemic. However, not all is doom and gloom. Several companies are in the race to manufacture a commercial Covid-19 vaccine. So, the slowdown should start letting up soon, and hopefully, pent up demand will make up for any lost sales.
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Top health official in Illinois breaks down announcing COVID-19 deaths New York Post US reports second-highest day of coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. The highest day was Friday CNNTarrant County Adds 642 Cases of COVID-19, 2 Deaths NBC 5 Dallas-Fort WorthIllinois announcess 4,062 new COVID-19 infections, another 24 deaths Chicago Sun-Times
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Shares of Intel Corp. are down 10.7% in Friday morning trading after the company posted September-quarter results that showed a bigger drop off in data-center sales than analysts were expecting. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya downgraded the stock to underperform from neutral following the report, writing that there seemed to be "no easy fix" to the company's manufacturing issues as the company also faces competitive challenges. The report highlighted "no plan/update to fix manufacturing challenges at next-gen 7-nanometer, with continued low yields at current-gen 10-nanometer process," Arya wrote. He's also concerned about "increasing competition from faster, nimbler fabless competitors such as Nvidia , AMD , ARM-based suppliers and others" that have capitalized on the foundry ecosystem. "We admire Intel's incumbency, portfolio breadth, balance sheet/[free-cash flow] and strategic US-based manufacturing," Arya wrote, but he worries about the "uncertainty of roadmap execution," which he said could hurt Intel's strong value share in the PC and data-center markets while also pressuring earnings growth. He also wonders if Intel is "too big" to move to a fabless model, as it "isn't clear if any foundry has either the spare capacity to make Intel's multiple [tens of billions of dollars] of transistors, or the desire to help a competitor only for a small timeframe while it improves its internal process and then leaves behind an empty fab." Arya lowered his price objective on the stock to $45 from $60. The stock has declined 20% over the past three months as the Dow Jones Industrial Average , of which Intel is a component, has risen 6.6%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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