Adobe Inc.

FEDEX CORP., $145.29, New York symbol FDX, reported lower-than-expected earnings this week, as weaker demand for its shipping services and higher insurance costs offset cost savings. In the first quarter of its 2016 fiscal year, which ended August 31, 2015, the company earned $692 million, up 13.1% from $612 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings gained 14.2%, to $2.42 from $2.12, on fewer shares outstanding, but that still missed the consensus estimate of $2.46. Overall revenue rose 5.1%, to $12.3 billion from $11.7 billion, matching the consensus forecast....

ATLANTIC TELE-NETWORK, $73.32, symbol ATNI on Nasdaq, is raising its quarterly dividend by 10.3% with the October 2015 payment, to $0.32 from $0.29. This is the company’s 17th consecutive annual dividend hike. The shares now yield 1.8%. Atlantic owns wireless and wireline (traditional telephone and Internet) operations in the U.S. Southwest, New England, New York State, Guyana, Bermuda and parts of the Caribbean islands. The company continues to expand its wireless capacity and coverage. That’s paying off as customers use more mobile data for services like music downloads, mobile gaming and e-books....

Both are growth stocks, but we see Sierra Wireless growing with the Internet of Things while Adobe Systems merits a hold right now.

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $80.73 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (408-536-6000; www.adobe.com; Shares outstanding: 497.6 million; Market cap: $40.4 billion; No dividends paid) makes software that lets computer users create, edit and share documents in the popular PDF format. Graphic designers also use its programs to create print publications and web pages. In its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended May 29, 2015, Adobe earned $0.48 a share, up 29.7% from $0.37 a year earlier. Revenue gained 8.8%, to a record $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion. The company continues to shift away from selling software as a one-time purchase and toward a subscription model. It now gets 72% of its revenue from recurring sources, compared to 55% a year ago....

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $80.73 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (408-536-6000; www.adobe.com; Shares outstanding: 497.6 million; Market cap: $40.4 billion; No dividends paid) makes software that lets computer users create, edit and share documents in the popular PDF format. Graphic designers also use its programs to create print publications and web pages.

In its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended May 29, 2015, Adobe earned $0.48 a share, up 29.7% from $0.37 a year earlier. Revenue gained 8.8%, to a record $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion.

The company continues to shift away from selling software as a one-time purchase and toward a subscription model. It now gets 72% of its revenue from recurring sources, compared to 55% a year ago.

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CALIAN TECHNOLOGIES LTD., $18.54, symbol CTY on Toronto, has won a $10-million contract with the City of Toronto to provide a software system for managing city employees’ hours. Calian will deliver this project over an 18-month period. To put the deal in context, the company reported revenue of $61.0 million in the three months ended March 31, 2015, up 19.3% from $51.2 million a year earlier. Earnings fell 6.6%, to $2.21 million, or $0.30 a share, from $2.36 million, or $0.32. That was mostly because Calian added workers to fulfill new contracts. This latest deal will add to the company’s revenue and demonstrates its ongoing ability to win recurring orders from all levels of government....

CONAGRA FOODS INC., $43.37, New York symbol CAG, jumped 11% on Friday on news that activist investment firm Jana Partners now owns 7.2% of the company. Jana will probably push ConAgra to sell or spin off its private-label food business. In January 2013, ConAgra paid $4.75 billion for Ralcorp Holdings, the largest private-label food maker in the U.S. However, strong competition has hurt its sales and earnings. As a result, ConAgra has had to writedown this investment by $2.1 billion. To put these figures in context, ConAgra’s market cap is $17.0 billion....

NISSAN MOTOR CO., $20.02, symbol NSANY on Nasdaq, is now offering airbags as an option on its low-priced Datsun cars in India. The move comes as Indian consumers grow more concerned about vehicle safety. The country’s roads are among the world’s deadliest, with more than 130,000 people killed in accidents a year. Last year, Nissan revived the dormant Datsun brand with the launch of an under-$6,700 U.S. hatchback. The company is using Datsun to compete for sales of lower-cost cars in emerging markets, partly to avoid tarnishing its Nissan brand’s reputation for higher-quality vehicles....

These three companies have a long history of developing cutting-edge products. That’s partly why they’re hitting new multi-year highs. However, disruptive new technologies could quickly overtake their latest offerings and slow their growth. APPLE INC. $129 (Nasdaq symbol AAPL; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.8 billion; Market cap: $748.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.7; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.apple.com) aims to cut its reliance on the iPhone smartphone, which supplies nearly 70% of its revenue, with several new products....

SYMANTEC CORP. $23.79 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 682.4 million; Market cap: $16.3 billion; Dividend yield: 2.5%) sells computersecurity technology, including antivirus and emailfiltering software, to businesses and consumers. In its fiscal 2015 third quarter, which ended January 2, 2015, Symantec earned $367 million, unchanged from a year earlier. However, per-share earnings rose 1.9%, to $0.53 from $0.52, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue slipped 3.9%, to $1.64 billion from $1.71 billion. But if you disregard the negative impact of the high U.S. dollar on the company’s overseas sales, revenue was flat....