Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day Highlights: DR Horton, TripAdvisor, GileadSciences, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb

CHICAGO, April 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Zacks Equity Research highlights DR Horton Inc. (NYSE:DHI) as the Bull of the Day and TripAdvisor Inc. (Nasdaq:TRIP) as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq:GILD), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY)

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Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2678.

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Did you miss the homebuilder rally last year? It's not too late. DR Horton Inc. (NYSE:DHI) is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) that is expected to grow earnings by 30% in 2013.

DR Horton is one of the largest homebuilders in the United States with operations in 77 markets in 26 states. Its homes are priced from $100,000 to $600,000.

The housing market has been recovering in 2013 but having been burned during the peak of the boom, the homebuilders have been more conservative about rolling out new product.

At the end of Fiscal 2012, DR Horton's backlog had risen 49.2%.

Interestingly, DR Horton finds itself in competition not so much with other homebuilders but with existing home sellers. That's where the good news comes in. Inventories of existing homes have been plummeting the last few months.

Bear of the Day:

Analysts had been too bullish on Internet travel site TripAdvisor Inc. (Nasdaq:TRIP) to start off the year. After the company gave weak guidance, earnings are now projected to grow only in the mid-single digits in 2013. That makes this Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) an expensive play with a forward P/E of 32.6.

TripAdvisor is now one of the world's largest travel sites, offering traveler reviews of hotels, attractions and restaurants from around the globe. The site operates in 30 countries, including in China under the name daodao.com.

But the company also operates 19 other travel brands including such sites like cruisecritic.com, familyvacationcritic.com, flipkey.com, seatguru.com and virtualtourist.com.

On Apr 9, TripAdvisor announced it was acquiring Jetsetter.com, an upscale members only travel booking site. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In February, the company's full year 2013 guidance was a disappointment as investment spending was expected to increase. Margins are expected to be the lowest in 5 years while the company adjusts to the mobile platform and absorbs acquisitions.

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Gilead Seeks FDA Approval

Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq:GILD) recently submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking approval to market its hepatitis C Virus (HCV) candidate sofosbuvir (formerly GS-7977).

Gilead is looking to get the candidate approved in combination with ribavirin (RBV) as an all-oral therapy for treating patients affected with genotypes 2 and 3 of the disease. The NDA also includes data backing the use of sofosbuvir in combination with RBV and pegylated interferon (peg-IFN) as a first-line therapy in patients suffering from the genotypes 1, 4, 5 and 6 of the virus.

Gilead submitted the NDA on the basis of encouraging data from four phase III studies (NEUTRINO, FISSION, POSITRON and FUSION). Data from the studies revealed that sofosbuvir-based therapy for 12 or 16 weeks was either superior or non-inferior to currently available HCV treatment options.

Approval of sofosbuvir would not only boost Gilead's top line but also strengthen its position in the lucrative HCV market. A sizeable population suffers from HCV the world over. However, the treated population is much lower. This leaves the field open for new treatments. We note that companies such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) are also developing therapies to combat HCV.

Approval of sofosbuvir would not only bring down the duration of HCV therapy to 12-16 weeks but also eliminate/reduce the duration of peg-IFN injections depending on the genotype of the disease. Currently, HCV therapy includes 24-48 weeks of treatment with injectable peg-IFN. Moreover, the current standard of care comes with several side effects which make it difficult for patients to remain on treatment.

Gilead intends to seek EU approval for sofosbuvir in the second quarter of 2013. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already granted Gilead's request for accelerated assessment of the company's Marketing Authorization Application for sofosbuvir. The acceptance of the request can bring down EMA's review time of the application by two months. Gilead also intends to seek sofosbuvir approval in other countries.

Get the full analysis of all these stocks by going to http://at.zacks.com/?id=2649.

About the Bull and Bear of the Day

Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.

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