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About Cabling Installation & Maintenance

Our mission: Bringing practical business and technical intelligence to today's structured cabling professionals

For more than 30 years, Cabling Installation & Maintenance has provided useful, practical information to professionals responsible for the specification, design, installation and management of structured cabling systems serving enterprise, data center and other environments. These professionals are challenged to stay informed of constantly evolving standards, system-design and installation approaches, product and system capabilities, technologies, as well as applications that rely on high-performance structured cabling systems. Our editors synthesize these complex issues into multiple information products. This portfolio of information products provides concrete detail that improves the efficiency of day-to-day operations, and equips cabling professionals with the perspective that enables strategic planning for networks’ optimum long-term performance.

Throughout our annual magazine, weekly email newsletters and 24/7/365 website, Cabling Installation & Maintenance digs into the essential topics our audience focuses on.

  • Design, Installation and Testing: We explain the bottom-up design of cabling systems, from case histories of actual projects to solutions for specific problems or aspects of the design process. We also look at specific installations using a case-history approach to highlight challenging problems, solutions and unique features. Additionally, we examine evolving test-and-measurement technologies and techniques designed to address the standards-governed and practical-use performance requirements of cabling systems.
  • Technology: We evaluate product innovations and technology trends as they impact a particular product class through interviews with manufacturers, installers and users, as well as contributed articles from subject-matter experts.
  • Data Center: Cabling Installation & Maintenance takes an in-depth look at design and installation workmanship issues as well as the unique technology being deployed specifically for data centers.
  • Physical Security: Focusing on the areas in which security and IT—and the infrastructure for both—interlock and overlap, we pay specific attention to Internet Protocol’s influence over the development of security applications.
  • Standards: Tracking the activities of North American and international standards-making organizations, we provide updates on specifications that are in-progress, looking forward to how they will affect cabling-system design and installation. We also produce articles explaining the practical aspects of designing and installing cabling systems in accordance with the specifications of established standards.

Cabling Installation & Maintenance is published by Endeavor Business Media, a division of EndeavorB2B.

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Headwinds for Darden Restaurants are an Opportunity For Investors

By: MarketBeat

Darden Restaurants stock outlook

Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) operational quality drove solid business in Q3, setting the stock up to continue its uptrend. Today's opportunity is that results were largely aligned with expectations and provided no catalyst for the market. The result is a downward movement within an up-trending channel that will result in another solid buy signal soon. Takeaways from the report are growth, leverage, cash flow and capital returns, which all support the valuation. 

Considering Darden’s industry-leading results, the 18X earnings valuation is light and plays into the opportunity. Best-in-breed Texas Roadhouse (NASDAQ: TXRH) trades at a 50% premium to Darden, which is rapidly improving its business. This suggests that a price-multiple expansion is also in play.

Darden Restaurants Grows and Widens Margins

The only thing wrong with Darden’s results is that Q3 aligned with the consensus forecast, and the guidance is light. Other than that, revenue and earnings are growing, and the guidance forecasts more of the same. The company brought in $3 billion in Q3, up nearly 7% compared to last year. 

The top line missed consensus, but by a slim 100 basis points, offset by the wider margin. Segmentally, comps are down in most segments and offset by 2.3% growth at Long Horn Steakhouse, aided by the addition of seventy-nine company-owned Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and 53 net-new other stores. 

The margin news is good. The company widened the margin in most operating segments, and the one that didn’t, Olive Garden, maintained a relatively flat margin with a better-than-expected net result. The bottom line of $2.62 in adjusted earnings excludes $0.02 in Ruth’s Chris acquisition costs and is up 12% compared to the top-line 6.8%. 

Guidance is the weakest portion of the report, and still not bad. The company guided full-year results to $11.4 billion in net sales compared to the $12.14 consensus figure, weak compared to consensus but up 8.6% YOY. The earnings outlook is the same; it is short of consensus but forecasts YOY growth. The salient detail is that earnings are sufficient to sustain the robust capital return outlook. 

Darden Restaurants Increases Capital Returns and Can Sustain It

Darden Restaurants pays an attractive dividend yielding 3.0% with shares near $165. That’s double the payout for highly-valued Texas Roadhouse, and it is a reliable payout. The distribution is less than 20% of the earnings guidance, and the balance sheet is a fortress, so there are no red flags for investors. Cash flow and balance sheet health also allow for share repurchases. 

The company repurchased $33 million in Q3, bringing the average share count down 1.7% quarterly and YTD, with additional reductions expected in the current quarter and next fiscal year. The board approved a new authorization worth $1 billion or 5% of the discounted stock price with no expiration to the plan. 

Darden Restaurants Is Trending Upward, A Buy Signal is Imminent

The analyst's activity suggests Darden stock is fairly valued near current levels. The post-release activity includes several price target reductions that have capped the high-end but continue to increase the consensus. The three revisions tracked by Marketbeat.com have the market trading in the range of $180 to $182 compared to the consensus of $180, which is 10% above the current action and aligns with the top of the channel. The takeaway is that Darden may fall today, but the uptrend is intact, and a buying signal should come soon.

Critical support is near the 150-day EMA. That target aligns with the analysts' lowest target and may provide a floor for the action. If so, DRI shares could begin to rebound within weeks, and the all-time high could be retested before summer. If not, this stock could fall to more solid support levels near the lower end of the channel before rebounding. 

Darden Restaurants stock chart

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