Stocks leaving analysts speechless are companies that most of those on Wall Street rate as strong buy. While there isn’t an S&P 500 company that gets all strong buys across the board, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, a number of them have nearly perfect consensus among analysts’ opinions.
Of the index’s members, only seven have a majority of buy ratings, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Broadening the search to include all the stocks from the S&P Composite 1500, the number rises to 17, or 12 if you exclude the Magnificent 7. To make the cut, a stock must get a buy rating from 75% of the analysts covering it. Only quality needs apply.
Here are three stocks leaving analysts speechless.
Uber Technologies (UBER)
Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) has a buy rating from 90.2% of the 51 analysts covering its stock. Its target price is $90, 12.5% higher than where it’s currently trading.
If you made a bet on the ride hailing business a year ago, you’ve more than doubled your money, as it’s up nearly 162%.
Of course, Uber is much more than ride hailing. It also has Uber Eats and a freight business. The three segments: Mobility, Delivery and Freight generated $19.93 billion, $12.20 billion and $5.25 billion in revenue, respectively, in 2023. In total, its total value of transactions was $37.38 billion, an increase of 15% from 2022.
The only downside to its performance in 2023 was the 17% decline in freight revenue due to a challenging freight market. As a result of the steep drop, the segment lost money on an EBITDA basis in the past year.
In terms of profitability, Uber’s business overall got much stronger in 2023, with EBITDA being up $618 million YoY. Adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of Gross Bookings was 3.4%, up from 2.2% in Q4 2022.
Roth Capital Partners analyst Rohit Kolkarni likes the company’s $7 billion share repurchase program.
“Uber’s buyback authorization announcement was ‘surprisingly large,’ Kulkarni said. ‘We see this as a sign of confidence in the company’s ability to predict profitable growth, generate significant cash flows, and control incremental dilution,’” CNBC reported in February.
Mastercard (MA)
Mastercard (NYSE:MA) has a buy rating from 87.5% of the 40 analysts covering its stock. Its target price is $510, 6% higher than where it’s currently trading.
Except for several corrections over the past five years, its 105% gain has been relatively pain-free for its long-time shareholders. It also managed to outperform its Visa (NYSE:V), its biggest rival, by 24 percentage points.
In February, Mastercard announced a partnership with MTN Group’s (OTCMKTS:MTNOY) fintech business to create a mobile money ecosystem across 13 markets in Africa.
“The partnership will use Mastercard’s cutting-edge technology and capabilities to support MTN’s ambition to become Africa’s largest fintech platform for both merchants and consumers. This follows Mastercard and MTN’s recent agreement for a minority investment into MTN Group Fintech – the digital financial services arm of Africa’s largest mobile network operator – that concluded this month,” stated its Feb. 29 press release.
With more than 1.3 billion people in Africa and only approximately 48% with bank accounts, there is an opportunity for MTN Group, as one of the continent’s largest wireless carriers, to leverage their customer loyalty with Mastercard’s payment technology. This should do wonders for payments on the continent.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) has a buy rating from 78.0% of the 50 analysts covering its stock. Its target price is $195, 8.3% higher than where it’s currently trading.
If AMD didn’t compete with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), its performance in 2024 would be considered a big success, up more than 30% on the year. However, thanks to Nvidia’s grip on AI, its shares have gained almost three times as much in the first three months of the year. The same is true over the past 12 months, with Nvidia gaining nearly 259%.
AMD CEO Lisa Su knows that her company can’t worry about what Nvidia’s doing. She’s got to keep investing in innovation, with the understanding that eventually investors will see that it too has an AI toolkit to provide enterprise customers.
Bloomberg reported in February about Su becoming a billionaire with a net worth of $1.2 billion. Her distant cousin Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO and co-founder, is now 20th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a list of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, at $79.7 billion, up $35.6 billion in 2024 alone. This was the second-biggest jump behind Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META).
If you’re going to be second best, being second-best to Nvidia isn’t a terrible position to be in.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
