The U.S. stock market performed solidly in September thanks to the long-awaited Federal Reserve interest rate cut. However, rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East could weigh on investor sentiment this month.
Nevertheless, investors can benefit by ignoring short-term noise and following the recommendations of Wall Street’s top analysts to select stocks with attractive long-term growth potential. .
With that in mind, here are three stocks that the Street’s top pros like, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on past performance.
cyberark software
This week’s first pick is CyberArk Software (CYBR), a cybersecurity company primarily focused on identity security. The company announced better-than-expected quarterly results and raised its full-year outlook, pointing to strong demand for its products.
RBC Capital analyst Matthew Hedberg recently initiated coverage on CYBR stock with a Buy rating and $328 price target, calling it a top mid-cap cybersecurity idea. Analysts believe the company is “well positioned to consolidate identity spending and maintain sustained, profitable growth.”
Hedberg expects CyberArk to maintain strong growth driven by demand for identity security and significant growth room within its core privileged access management (PAM) market. Additionally, analysts believe the company can grow beyond the PAM market by pursuing cross-selling opportunities in the access, secrets, endpoint privilege management (EPM), and machine identity markets.
Hedberg also expects the company to benefit from the acquisition of machine identity specialist Venafi. He expects Venafi’s growth to return to over 20% and CyberArk’s growth and profits to increase over time.
Overall, Hedberg is optimistic about further improvements in CyberArk’s profitability and expects the company’s organic growth to exceed 20% in the coming years on the back of an estimated $60 billion total addressable market (TAM). I am doing it.
Mr. Hedberg is ranked #164 out of over 9,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His rating is profitable 62% of the time, with an average return of 14.7%. (See CYBR hedge fund activity on TipRanks)
Uber Technologies
Move to ride-sharing and food delivery platform Uber Technologies (UBER). After hosting a meeting with the company’s management, JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth reaffirmed his buy rating on Uber stock with a price target of $95.
Highlighting the key takeaways from the meeting, Mr. Anmas said that, supported by a stable macro and demand background since the second quarter results, management has achieved a three-year average annual growth rate of total orders in the mid to high teens. He said he is confident that he will achieve this goal. Specifically, management said demand remains healthy in both its mobility and delivery businesses.
Anmuth also noted that the company is optimistic about expanding its advertising business across Uber Eats and grocery stores. In particular, our advertising business has a run rate of $1 billion (as of Q2), or approximately 1% of gross delivery bookings. In fact, distribution margins have improved in recent quarters thanks to its high-margin advertising business. Uber expects its grocery advertising business to account for 5% of total bookings over the long term.
The analyst also pointed to the company’s growing interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs). “Uber can add value to AV technology providers by increasing demand and utilization and building an AV ecosystem through fleet operations,” Anmas said, based on discussions with management.
Anmuth is ranked #93 out of over 9,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His rating is profitable 62% of the time, with an average return of 18.4%. (See UBER stock buyback on TipRanks)
meta platform
The third stock of the week is social media company Metaplatforms (META). At the recent Meta Connect event, the company highlighted innovations such as its latest virtual reality headset, the Quest 3S, as well as its latest prototype of augmented reality (AR) smart glasses (Orion) and new features in Meta AI. Chatbot.
Following the announcement at the event, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian reaffirmed his buy rating on Meta stock and raised his price target from $530 to $605.
The analyst attributed the price target increase to a number of factors, including significant opportunities for core revenue growth through artificial intelligence (AI)/generative AI capabilities and continued momentum in messaging. His improved outlook also reflects a “generally positive check on social media advertising,” with a better outlook for September than the trends noted in August.
The analyst expects 2025 revenue and 2024 and 2025 earnings per share to reflect stable macro trends, increased contribution from messaging, and enhancements related to devices and AI-driven platforms. pulled up. However, the company slightly lowered its operating margin forecast for 2025 to reflect higher networking and depreciation costs.
Commenting on Meta Connect, Sebastian said he believes this year’s event reflects significant progress in the company’s Reality Labs division and AI/Generative AI. Specifically, analysts believe that the Llama update will give Meta’s LLM (Large-Scale Language Model) an additional advantage over close rivals such as Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini. There is. He is also optimistic about innovations related to Meta AI assistants, predicting that they will become the most popular AI assistants by the end of 2024.
Sebastian is ranked #277 out of 9,000+ analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings are profitable 57% of the time, with an average return of 13.6%. (See META insider trading activity on TipRanks)
