Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights: Bank of Ireland, CRH and Fly Leasing

News provided by

Mar 14, 2014, 09:30 ET

CHICAGO, March 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights Features: Bank of Ireland (NYSE:IRE-Free Report), CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH-Free Report) and Fly Leasing (NYSE:FLY-Free Report).

3 Stocks for St. Patty's Day

With March 17 right around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at 3 stocks that come from Ireland. These stocks all trade on the NYSE, so domestic investors could look to these names to add international exposure.

Wearing of the Green

If you are looking for green in your portfolio, one place to look to invest are the professionals that handle the green. By green I mean money, and one opportunity when looking at investing in Irish stocks is Bank of Ireland (NYSE:IRE-Free Report).

Bank of Ireland is off to a great start this year, with the ADR up about 38% year to date. At $15B its no small cap and on par with Cleveland Ohio based KeyCorp. The stock is also pretty liquid with 850K shares traded on the average day.

Right now, the stock is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), and has seen consistent decreases in the underlying loss before taxes. The first half of 2012 saw a loss of 933 million Euros, and that was cut to 566 million Euros in the second half of 2012. The loss was further reduced to 383 million euros through the first half of 2013 and was halved again to 186 million Euros for the second half of 2013.

The bank has 11,500 post office branches and 2,400 ATM's servicing the 1.6 million consumer customers and 600K wealth management customers.

If you are looking for a resurrection of the Celtic Tiger, this is going to be the stock for you. The recent underlying strength in Europe means that IRE is likely to continue to benefit.

No Blarney in This Stone

To kiss the Blarney Stone will give that person the "gift of gab" which is to say they will have a way with words. The stone is located in the Blarney Castle about five miles away from Cork Ireland.

If there would be a company to build the Castle today, CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH-Free Report) would be the one. Well for the purposes of this Irish inspired article they would anyway.

CRH PLC is a supplier of building materials primarily in Western Europe and North America. The company produces and sells a range of primary materials, including cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, asphalt/bitumen, and agricultural and chemical lime.

Year to date, this stock has built up a gain of 11%, which is good but investors also recently benefited from a $0.60 dividend so you can add on about 3% to that gain.

Over the last year or so, CRH has held a Zacks Rank of between #3 (Hold) and #5 (Strong Sell). The Rank changes when analysts move their earnings estimates. So over the last 12 months or so, there haven't been too many increases to estimates.

December was a strong month for the company as Citigroup upgraded their recommendation from Sell to Neutral on the stock. Later that same month saw Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgrade the stock as well. They moved their rating to Neutral from Under-perform.

Pot O'Gold

They say if you catch a Leprechaun, the "mythical" creature will be forced to tell you where his pot of gold is. Recent horror movies suggest that won't exactly happen and old fables mirror that as the supernatural being will do everything it can to trick you.

Another Irish saying is that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and I know from experience it's hard to run to one end (or the other) of a rainbow. Instead, you might want to employ the services on another Irish company to help you on that adventure.

Fly Leasing (NYSE:FLY-Free Report) is a Dublin Ireland based company that is leases commercial jet aircraft. I figured that a jet might help you chase the rainbow a little better than just running after it.

The world of commercial aviation is a difficult one where demand for new airplanes outweighs supply. Often times smaller airlines are forced to use the services of companies like FLY as they look add new aircraft as the bigger carriers buy up most of the new production. Another benefit of leasing is not carrying a large asset on the books and this improving ROI.

Over the last five quarters, FLY has posted four beats and one meet, which is a great record for any company. Revenue, however has been seeing a lot of weakens of late as the most recent report on March 6 saw revenue decrease from $131M a year ago to $85M for the most recent quarter.

As I started writing this article, FLY was a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but has slipped to a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) as the estimates have fallen for the stock. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2014 has kicked lower from $1.22, where it stood from November through February, to $1.13 in March.

The 2015 Zacks Consensus Estimate has also seen a move lower, and this one is a bigger move. The estimate was at $2.13 as of February, but is now down to $1.75. Those sort of downward earnings estimate revisions are the foundation of the move lower in the Zacks Rank.

Investors might be wise to just use the jets to chase rainbows before investing in this stock. However, a move higher in estimates could signal that the skies are clearing for this stock and there would be no need to chase Leprechaun's or rainbows if that is the case.

Conclusion

Investing in Irish stocks makes for a great pre St. Patrick's Day article. Finding good Irish stocks can be challenging and while international diversification helps investors, waiting to see estimates turn higher is a key strategy to employ.

St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner, we at Zacks hope you enjoy the parades and have a safe holiday.

About Zacks

Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978. The later formation of the Zacks Rank, a proprietary stock picking system; continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Click here for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros.

Get the full Report on IRE – FREE

Get the full Report on CRH – FREE

Get the full Report on FLY – FREE

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ZacksInvestmentResearch

Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

[email protected]

http://www.zacks.com

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 http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101027/ZIRLOGO

SOURCE Zacks Investment Research, Inc.