Barron's Picks And Pans: AT&T, GE, Zynga And More

This weekend's Barron's examines why the merger frenzy among chipmakers has not impressed investors.

Other featured articles discuss stock picks for any presidential outcome, how health insurers perform after elections, and the good, bad and odd of big tech earnings.

Also, the prospects for a game developer, an industrial, telecom giant and more.

"Chip Firms Bulk Up, and Investors Balk" by Max A. Cherney suggests that, while Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD CEO Lisa Su says, "The more scale you have, the more you can do for your customers," for investors, the picture is more complicated. See what the big acquisitions by chipmakers mean for their stocks.

Max A. Cherney's "Zynga Finds a Global Stage for Its Mobile Games" says that Zynga Inc. ZNGA gets overshadowed by larger videogame makers, but the company is learning how to play in a market of 2 billion people. See how the stock is a play on smartphones and games like Words With Friends.

In "3 Industrial Stocks to Watch if the U.S. Recovery Mimics China," Al Root makes the case that China is rebounding from COVID-19 and so will the United States, and there are stocks that will profit from both economies growing again. What could that mean for Boeing Co. BA and Parker-Hannifin Corp. PH?

Some trends just are not dependent on who occupies the White House. So says "Trump or Biden? Stocks to Buy for Any Outcome" by Liz Moyer. Find out what that could mean for everything from Abbott Laboratories ABT to Newmont Corp. NEM.

In Daren Fonda's "Managed-Care Stocks, and Anthem, Could Rise After Vote," discover why health-insurer stocks like Humana Inc. HUM tend to slip before elections but deliver hefty gains in the following year. And see why the CEO at Anthem Inc. ANTM sounds upbeat.

"General Electric's Stock Price Is Stuck. Here's What It Will Take to Get It Rising Again" by Al Root examines why General Electric Co. GE stock has remained in the same price range since the beginning of June. Barron's wonders whether there is a secondary offering in the cards.

See why Alphabet Inc. GOOGL was the star and Twitter Inc. TWTR the loser of reporting season, according to Eric J. Savitz's "The Good, Bad, and Just Plain Odd From Tech's Earnings." The article also examines hiring plans at Amazon.com Inc. AMZN.

In "Forget AT&T's Lofty 7.8% Yield. Its Dividend Looks Safe," Lawrence C. Strauss points out that whether AT&T Inc. T can extend its streak of dividend increases is subject to debate among market watchers. See why Barron's believes telecom and media company has the financial wherewithal to keep it going.

Jack Hough's "Overconfident Predictions for Stocks, the Election, and a Covid-19 Vaccine" posits that the future is unknowable, but that's no reason not to forecast it out to two decimal places. Will AstraZeneca plc AZN or Pfizer Inc. PFE come out ahead in the race for a coronavirus vaccine?

Also in this week's Barron's: