Analysts’ Top S&P 500 Stocks to Buy Now

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This scale hasn’t done much for MSFT shares in 2022, however. As the company has seen a slump of about 20% since New Year’s Day, significantly worse than the broader S&P 500 Index. But the good news is that beyond these stock price challenges, it’s clear like the core business of Microsoft has a lot going for it. Loop, MKM and Truist analysts all reiterated their Buy ratings on the stock in the last month or two.

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The hard part is evaluating whether the business is worth investing in over the long haul. That requires learning about the business model, its financial situation and anything else that might influence its share price in the future. Yahoo Finance has several preset screens with growth-focused ideas, including one for growth technology stocks and another for undervalued growth stocks, a riff on blended stocks. In his feature, The 30 Best Stocks of the Past 30 Years, Dan Burrows, senior investing writer at Kiplinger, highlights a study that details the performance of 64,000 global stocks over 30 years between January 1990 and December 2020. The data, courtesy of Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at the W.P.

How to Find the Best Growth Stocks

And that is what Nvidia has provided and, equally important, continues to promise. Earnings saw a big jump over the last year, and analysts anticipate that will continue with estimated 66.3% EPS growth next fiscal year on sales growth of 56.6%. The stock is trading below its 52-week high and its all-time 2022 high. LYV’s share price gain has outpaced the S&P 500 over the past decade, averaging 15.9% per year versus 12% per year for the S&P 500. Stock in Discover Financial Services (DFS) trades at a discount to its fair value, says Morningstar analyst Michael Miller. However, this spread was narrowed after Capital One (COF) in February said it plans to buy the credit card company in an all-stock deal worth $35 billion, news that sent DFS shares soaring.

#10: Micron Technology

All stocks on the list are covered by Bank of America analysts, and the stocks chosen typically remain on the list throughout the quarter unless coverage is dropped or an analyst’s recommendation changes. Fidelity National Information Services is a leading global provider of financial technology solutions for merchants, capital market firms and banks. Analyst Lorraine Hutchinson says Tapestry’s stock is undervalued relative to its impressive margin profile and cash flow generation.

Argus Research’s Jim Kelleher says “We believe that this lagging performance provides an opportunity to establish or dollar-average into positions in AMZN stock, which remains the undisputed category leader.” The analyst community apparently likes what it sees, based on recent moves; Guggenheim initiated coverage at a Buy rating at the end of May, and Piper Sandler upgraded IQV stock to Overweight, from Neutral, shortly after its earnings report. William Blair (Outperform, equivalent of Buy) is downright stunned at the stock’s performance this year and believes it will bounce back. Wayne Duggan has a decade of experience covering breaking market news and providing analysis and commentary related to popular stocks.

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That’s bad news for growth stocks, which suffer in a rising rate environment. In addition, higher interest rates make future cash flows less valuable. That means that when interest rates rise, future earning growth becomes less valuable in today’s dollars because they must be discounted at a higher rate. Most importantly, growth stocks are companies offering products or services that truly change how people live their lives.

Caesars Entertainment (CZR, $51.60) is the parent company of the iconic Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, as well as other newer resorts and digital gaming offerings. And while it’s one of the smaller stocks on this list, it also enjoys the rosiest outlook by Wall Street analysts, who not only view the stock as a Strong Buy, but believe on average that it will more than double over the coming year. There is obviously a lot of risk here, and it’s hard to overstate the terrible devastation in Ukraine that has crippled the local economy and could weigh on the workforce for years to come.

It is the parent company of popular brands such as Kraft, Heinz, Oscar Meyer and Maxwell House. Analyst Rafe Jadrosich says productivity improvements, a favorable pricing environment and acquisition synergies create opportunities for TopBuild to expand its margins. In addition, Jadrosich says an uptick in single-family housing starts could boost fiberglass prices further, and TopBuild has a growing opportunity in the spray foam insulation market as well. Intuitive Surgical is a health care equipment company that developed the da Vinci Surgical System, which uses advanced robotics and computerized visualization technology to perform minimally invasive surgeries. Progressive is a leading U.S. auto and motorcycle insurance provider, including commercial auto insurance.

  1. News & World Report and a contributing columnist for TheStreet.
  2. It’s still a stock-picker’s market, and Kron has some stock picks for investors trying to strike a balance between avoiding over-exuberance and profiting from the current rally.
  3. Companies from the energy, consumer staples and healthcare sectors are ably represented too.
  4. In addition, there’s a brief summary of each stock’s investment thesis.

Because of that, all it takes is a few of these funds to build a well-rounded, diversified portfolio. They’re also less risky than attempting to pick a few could-be winners out of a lineup of stocks. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger’s advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. In January, the tech titan posted great earnings that featured 20% YoY revenue growth and a 22% jump in EPS. What’s more, it is increasingly important that Microsoft’s cloud segment surpassed $22 billion to see an even faster growth rate of 32%. The airline industry is prone to plenty of financial troubles, with several high-profile bankruptcies over the years.

The question rookie investors should ask themselves isn’t which style is better, but rather why each style matters. Perhaps more importantly, folks should be researching how to successfully integrate them into their overall investment strategy. As for the broader economy, it seems as though the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes have been doing their job, with core PCE inflation only rising 4.1% year-over-year.

The company has an “A” financial health rating from Morningstar. Anne Kates Smith brings Wall Street to Main Street, with decades of experience covering investments and personal finance for real people trying to navigate fast-changing markets, preserve financial security or plan for the future. She oversees the magazine’s investing coverage,  authors Kiplinger’s biannual stock-market outlooks and writes the “Your Mind and Your Money” column, a take on behavioral finance and how investors can get out of their own way. Smith began her journalism career as a writer and columnist for USA Today. News & World Report and a contributing columnist for TheStreet. Smith is a graduate of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., the third-oldest college in America.

Growth stocks can create significant returns for investors, but what are they and how do you find the best ones? “Receding inflation, an end to Fed tightening, accelerating growth – these are all the makings of a Goldilocks environment for stocks, potentially,” Kron summarized. T-Mobile provides wireless services to over 100 million U.S. residents. Over the years, TMUS’s EPS has been erratic, seeing both big increases and declines. Analysts expect earnings growth to persist for the next several years. While the company’s P/E ratio is 27.9, which is slightly pricier than the 23.6 for the broad market in the form of the S&P 500, YMM still has much higher growth prospects than the typical S&P 500 stock over the next five years.

With a strong history of outperformance and a bright future for sales and profits, many analysts remain bullish on this stock despite challenges in the semiconductor space recently. MU remains one of the S&P 500’s best stocks, in the analysts’ eyes, as a result. Alternative investments typically have two traits, says Alison Staloch, CFO of Fundrise.

Cadence’s sales related to artificial intelligence (AI) tripled in 2023, and analysts at Zacks Investment Research expect even faster growth in 2024. They predict earnings growth of 18% over each of the next three years, which is why CDNS is on this list of the best stocks to buy. It’s been a stunning series of highs for the stock market — in the last year, the S&P 500 index has surged over 25%. Moreover, a handful of individual stocks in the S&P 500 have posted triple-digit gains in that time. Here’s a list of the best stocks in the S&P 500, measured by one-year return, updated weekly.

First, their investment returns often are not correlated with the publicly traded markets. Second, their underlying investments are not bought and sold on the publicly traded markets either. Bank of America has a “buy” rating and $40 price target for KHC stock. Spillane says Kraft Heinz’s stock is attractively valued and the company is positioned to meet or exceed Wall Street earnings estimates.

There are funds that track a particular type of asset, such as AI stock ETFs or tech stock ETFs. Kiplinger is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. “We believe this quarter represents the trough in terms of digital profitability and that losses will be less severe going forward, with the goal of digital profitability before football season of 2023,” says CFRA analyst Arun Sundaram (Buy).

Bank of America has a “buy” rating and $450 price target for ISRG stock. Bank of America has a “buy” rating and $173 price target for GOOGL stock. Bank of America has a “buy” rating and $265 price target for PGR stock. Bank of America has a “buy” rating and $315 price target for SPOT stock. The S&P 500 followed up a strong 2023 performance with another quarter of solid gains to kick off 2024. Investor concerns over inflation, elevated interest rates and a potential economic slowdown continue to ease, and the S&P 500 has now logged back-to-back quarters of 10% gains for just the eighth time since 1950.

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