The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Microsoft, Amazon.com, Philip Morris International, Preformed Line Products and Security Federal

Mon, Sep 8, 2025, 11:01 AM 7 min read

Chicago, IL – September 8, 2025 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Microsoft Corp. MSFT, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, Philip Morris International Inc. PM, Preformed Line Products Co. PLPC and Security Federal Corp. SFDL.

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today’s Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com, Inc. and Philip Morris International Inc., as well as two micro-cap stocks Preformed Line Products Co. and Security Federal Corp.. The Zacks microcap research is unique as our research content on these small and under-the-radar companies is the only research of its type in the country.

These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.

You can see all of today’s research reports here >>>

The daily ‘Ahead of Wall Street’ article is a must-read for all investors who would like to be ready for that day’s trading action. The article comes out before the market opens, attempting to make sense of that morning’s economic releases and how they will affect that day’s market action. You can read this article for free on our home page and can actually sign up there to get an email notification as this article comes out each morning.

You can read today’s AWS here >>> BLS Jobs for August: +22K, Unemployment +4.3%

Microsoft’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Computer – Software industry over the year-to-date period (+21.2% vs. +16.1%). The company capitalizes on AI business momentum and Copilot adoption alongside accelerating Azure cloud infrastructure expansion. Recently, MSFT introduced its first proprietary AI models, MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview.

Microsoft projects Azure growth of 37% for fiscal first-quarter 2026. Strong Office 365 Commercial demand has been propeling Productivity and Business Processes revenue growth. ARPU is increasing through E5 and M365 Copilot uptake across key segments. Strategic execution through expanding scale and enterprise customer growth is driving non-AI services.

Xbox revenues are benefiting from strength across third-party and first-party content offerings. The Zacks analyst expect fiscal 2026 net sales to grow 12.9% from fiscal 2025. However, elevated operating expenses and Azure investments amid intensifying cloud competition remain headwinds.