Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Altria, Apple, Netflix, Slack And More

Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week.

Bullish calls included a FANG stock and tobacco and health care giants.

Bearish calls included the iPhone maker and a struggling old-school conglomerate.

The big U.S. indexes ended the final week of August with marginal gains, but they were still in the red for the month, with the Dow Jones industrials down fractionally and the Nasdaq almost 2% lower. It also was a week when the trade war roller coaster continued, not to mention the Brexit drama — and a potentially  devastating hurricane took aim at Florida and the rest of the east coast.

Bulls

Netflix Inc NFLX shares retreated recently, but at least one large trader made some big option market bets on a recovery, according to Wayne Duggan's "Option Trader Makes Massive Bets On Netflix Rebound."

In "Why One Johnson & Johnson Analyst Sees Oklahoma Opioid Ruling As Near-Term Sentiment Positive," Shanthi Rexaline details sell-side takes on the path forward for Johnson & Johnson JNJ. 

Dave Royse's "Altria, Philip Morris Discuss Reunion Merger: Analyst Says Deal Makes 'Strategic Sense'" takes a look why Altria Group Inc. MO and Philip Morris International Inc. PM may reunite. 

"Ciena Analyst Turns Bullish, Says Demand Outlook Improving" by Priya Nigam shows why one key analyst was bullish on Ciena Corporation CIEN ahead of its third-quarter earnings report.

For additional bullish calls, also have a look at "Stock Wars: Facebook Vs. Twitter Vs. Snapchat" and "Wedbush: Zynga's Upside Potential Makes It A Top Play."

Bears

Exiting the Chinese market is not an option for companies like Apple Inc. AAPL. So says "Apple Analyst On Tariff Escalation: The 'Nightmare That Doesn't Go Away'" by Jayson Derrick.

In Wayne Duggan's "Mixed GE Options Trades Suggest The Rally May Soon Run Out Of Steam," see why there may be more uncertainty ahead for General Electric Company GE, and why it remains a somewhat speculative play.

Randy Elias's "Slack Continues Fall After WSJ Suggests Stock Is Overpriced" takes a look at why Slack Technologies Inc WORK stock traded below $30 a share for only the second time last week.

"Cowen Slashes PVH Price Target: 'We Need More Clarity On Sustainable Free Cash Flow'" by Brett Hershman examines why one analyst was not impressed with the PVH Corp PVH earnings beat.

Be sure to check out "Nomura Cautious On 5G Impact For Apple, Trims iPhone Demand Estimates" and "Margin Expansion Was Story For Hewlett Packard Enterprise, But Analyst Fears It May Not Be Sustainable" for additional bearish calls.

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

Keep up with all the latest breaking news and trading ideas by following Benzinga on Twitter.