Top Benzinga Stocks Of The Week: GE, Facebook, Apple And More

• Benzinga has featured a look at many investor favorite stocks over the past week.
• That includes an iconic conglomerate that may be lacking in fundamentals and whether it is too late to board the iPhone makers train.
• The outlooks for a restructured aluminum company, a social media giant, a growing networking company and a former cellphone maker are also examined.

The first quarter ended this past week, and the markets have taken a breather, with the Trump rally that began on election day in November finally slowing down. The following are just a few investor favorite stocks featured by Benzinga during the week.

Utilities: General Electric And Alcoa

"General Electric's Fundamentals Glass Viewed As Less Than Half Full" by Shanthi Rexaline suggests there is room for skepticism of General Electric Company GE despite high near-term prospects that it will achieve its 2017 earnings per share objectives. Does it remain a top large-cap diversified industrial stock pick?

In "4 Reasons BMO Upgraded The 'New' Alcoa," Jayson Derrick examines why the decision for Alcoa Corp AA to merge its six different business units into three to increase efficiency and slash cuts won over another Wall Street analyst. Valuation and free cash flow use fit into that decision, but will the stock see a 60 percent gain or a 35 percent pullback?

Tech Space: Broadcom, Facebook, Apple And BlackBerry

Jim Swanson's "Extreme Networks Is The Next Major Networking Player" takes a look at the deal for Broadcom Ltd AVGO to sell the data center switching, routing and analytics assets it will acquire in a buyout to Extreme Networks, Inc EXTR. See why one analyst believes the deal could make Extreme Networks the next major networking player.

The next three to five years could be "a golden era" for mobile, according to "Why Facebook Is The Best Pure Play In Consumer Internet" by Jim Swanson. See why secular growth in mobile advertising makes Facebook Inc FB the place to be, especially for growth at a reasonable price (GARP) investors. And see what Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp bring to the table.

In Jayson Derrick's "At This Price, Is It Too Late To Buy Apple Stock?" see the path that one analyst sees for shares of Apple Inc. AAPL to reach $200 apiece. But how much does this depend on Apple entering new large markets such as transportation and management becoming more aggressive about share buybacks than in the past few years?

"BlackBerry Still A 2–3 Year Investment Story " by Wayne Duggan takes a look at the prospects for BlackBerry Ltd BBRY in the wake of a big fourth-quarter earnings beat and strong guidance. While a number of investors have written off the stock in recent years, at least one analyst sees the company's turnaround coming with a big payoff for BlackBerry investors in the long term.

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