Top Analysts Say Buy Stocks Like Papa John’s and Alphabet

We enter the new year with a largely unchanged macroeconomic backdrop and a recession awaiting us. However, investors can maintain a healthy portfolio if they take a longer-term view, cutting out all the noise.

Against that backdrop, we’ll start 2023 with five stocks selected by top Wall Street analysts, according to TipRanks, a service that ranks analysts based on past performance their.

Medical technology company STAAR . surgery (STAA) is benefiting from the need for refractive error correction (surgical correction of eye diseases) around the world. Furthermore, analyst BTIG Ryan Zimmerman believes that favorable demographic trends, including an aging population and a growing number of cases of myopia, are also driving demand for STAAR products.

In early December, the company announced that its president and chief executive officer, Caren Mason, would be retiring at the end of the month. Mason’s successor will be Thomas Frinzi, who had previously been the head Johnson & Johnson vision unit and president of Abbott Medical Optics. Zimmerman said the appointment of Frinzi could appease investors given its 40 years of experience in medical optics. (See Staar . Surgical Hedge Fund Trading Activity on TipRanks)​

The analyst is also optimistic about the demand environment for STAAR products over different time periods. “Next-generation lenses to new markets will drive growth in the short-term, while the accompanying indices of enlargement, presbyopia, and cataracts will drive long-term growth,” Zimmerman said. who reiterated a buy rating on the stock with a price target of $80.

Zimmerman ranks 861 out of more than 8,000 analysts tracked on TipRanks. Additionally, 44% of his ratings were profitable, with each rating generating an average 7.2% return.

Fast service pizza chain of John’s father (PZZA) stocks have depreciated significantly this year due to challenges in the UK and inflationary pressures, but its long-term outlook remains resilient. analyst BTIG Peter Saleh note that in times of high inflation and an impending recession, low-income consumers are spending less on dining out. As a result, Papa John’s value offerings such as Papa Pairings are attracting new lower-income guests.

After surveying more than 1,000 Papa John’s customers, Saleh found that only a low percentage of them found the menu prices too expensive, even after the company raised prices three to four times last year. 2022. Emboldened by these trends, the analyst slightly raised his domestic same-store sales expectations for Q4 2022. (See Papa John’s International Insider Trading Operations on TipRanks)

Saleh reiterated a buy rating on the stock with a price target of $100. “We believe the new leadership has the right strategies in place to engineer a change; these efforts have translated into better operational efficiency, closer alignment between franchisees and increased net unit growth improved and we expect these to continue to build into 2022/23. We see some short- and long-term leverage to drive shareholder value have begun to open. out and will allow Papa John’s to once again outperform its peers, resulting in our Buy rating,” said Saleh.

Saleh ranks 524th out of more than 8,000 analysts on TipRanks. Each of his 59% success ratings has yielded an average return of 10.3%.

Next on our list is Monness analyst Crespi Hardt by Brian White stock picks, Alphabet (GOOGLE), proved more resilient than its peers in this year’s digital advertising market. Moreover, the company can minimize the impact on its business with the help of strong growth in Google Cloud.

“A challenging year is coming to an end, but headwinds continue into 2023,” White said. Alphabet has begun reducing spending to better prepare. (See Alphabetical Grade A stock chart on TipRanks)

“In our view, Alphabet is well-positioned to capitalize on long-term digital advertising trends, participate in the transition of workloads to the cloud, and benefit from digital transformation,” said White. digital”. reiterated a buy rating on the stock with a price target of $135.

The analyst noted that Alphabet has delivered 23% year-over-year revenue growth and 27% operating profit over the past five years. Along with a dominant position in the search engine space with a leadership position in digital advertising, White believes the stock will trade higher than the technology sector in the long run.

White, a 5-star analyst on TipRanks, comes in at number 71 out of more than 8,000 analysts followed. Additionally, 62% of his ratings were profitable, with each rating delivering an average return of 17.2%.

Wired and wireless communication services Verizon (VZ) is another name on our top 5 list this week. One of 5 star analyst’s pick Ivan Feinseth of Tigress Financial Partners, Verizon is well positioned to benefit from ongoing 5G wireless subscriber growth and new growth opportunities in fiber and fixed broadband connectivity.

Feinseth expects that the “advantage of scale” and the prospect of rapid deployment of high-speed 5G connectivity in the US will drive further growth in wireless subscription numbers. (See Verizon Stock Investor affection on TipRanks)

Verizon prides itself on a strong balance sheet and cash flow generation capabilities that allow the company to invest in bandwidth expansion and other growth initiatives. Furthermore, a healthy financial position helps the company maintain an attractive dividend yield and increase its dividend consistently.

“VZ’s projected economic activity cash flow (EBITDAR) will generate $54.53 billion in the near term, giving VZ a substantial amount of cash to fund the high-speed network rollout.” 5G, spectrum buying, other growth initiatives, strategic acquisitions and ongoing dividend increases,” said Feinseth, who holds 283th place out of more than 8,000 analysts on TipRanks.

The analyst reiterates a buy rating and a target price of $64 (adjusted lower from $68) on VZ stock.

Notably, 58% of Feinseth’s ratings have generated returns, and each rating has yielded an average return of 10.3%.

General purpose database platform provider MongoDB (MDB) is one of Feinseth’s buys that we think is a great addition to this week’s portfolio. Feinseth says the company’s “industry-leading open-source database software architecture” is attracting new customers.

Feinseth said that while lowering its price target to $365 from $575, the company is still willing to profit from a gradual increase in enterprise IT spending as companies using Database have MongoDB’s high scalability and customization as a Service. (See MongoDB Website Traffic on TipRanks)

“The rapid acceleration of hosted and hybrid cloud migrations is driving growing demand for scalable, customizable, and user-friendly database architectures.” This will continue to drive growth in MDB’s subscription-based revenue model This will drive the trend of continued acceleration in Business Performance, which will drive Yield on capital (ROC) growth, resulting in significantly increased economic returns and the creation of long-term value for shareholders,” Feinseth said in justifying his stance on MDB stock.