It’s already Christmas and New Years and there are less than five trading days left in the year. The Dow was up over 14% YTD and the S&P 500 was up 26% YTD. Even more impressive was the 29% gain for the NASDAQ-100. But forget about 2024 because the past means nothing when looking forward. Now it’s all about what to look for in 2025.
Wall Street analysts generally make very few big research calls in the second half of December. After all, there are far fewer clients who will see and then act on those calls. But of the analyst calls that do get made, there are often some hidden gems for investors looking forward into the next year.
The major strategists are looking for the S&P 500 to gain 8% to 11% on average for 2025 at this point. The analysts on Wall Street have many of the market’s top stocks where they are calling for well over 10% upside — and they made some big analyst calls in those final days as well. Some of these large stocks are still being given upside price targets of 20% or even over 30% in a few cases for the next 12-month period.
Oggonomics always reminds its readers and all investors that no single analyst report should ever be used as the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. The decision to buy, sell or hold is the ultimate responsibility of each investor and the decision to buy or sell should be made with a financial advisor.
Investors should also keep in mind that analyst calls and strategic forecast calls never come with any assurances or guarantees. In fact, some of the analysts can be dead wrong. And sometimes the whole scenario can change overnight due to an adverse outside event that was unknown unforeseeable at the time of the call. And, despite the calls for big gains, these can result in big losses if the upside scenarios do not pan out.
These are ten of the big stocks seeing analyst calls with significant upside heading into 2025.
THE MIGHT AMAZON AS A TOP PICK
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) needs no introduction. At $220 and with a fresh strike at some warehouse bottlenecks, Wall Street is looking past any of the noise and sees a strong 2025 even after a 48% rally so far in 2024. Several analysts have Amazon identified as the equivalent of “Top Picks” for 2025.
Bernstein and JPMorgan both count it as a best idea stock. Bernstein has an outperform and recently raised its target to $265 from $235; and JPMorgan recently reiterated its Overweight rating and raised its target to $280 from $250. Truist also issued it among its 4 Top Internet Picks for 2025.
APPLE TO $4 TRILLION VALUE?
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was given a Christmas stocking stuffer present right before Christmas. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities sees a robust iPhone sales cycle during Christmas from iPhone 16 upgrades trending well in channel checks. Ives also noted that another 100 million iPhones could be upgraded with newer devices in China alone next year and that there are still 300 million iPhones in use globally which have not been upgraded in over 4 years.
Apple Intelligence features like Visual Intelligence and Image Playground may help make Apple the world’s first $4 trillion company by early 2025 (needs to reach $264.62 to hit that, outside of share buybacks). Apple was recently at $255 and Dan Ives has the highest known target on Wall Street at $300 as of now. Just do not overlook that Apple is above its consensus analyst price target of $247.58.
BROADCOM – THE NEXT NVIDIA?
Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: AVGO) became “the next NVIDIA” after showing that its AI related chip sales were up 200% and were driving much larger upside in 2025. The most recent call on December 20 was Morgan Stanley reiterating its buy rating and raising its price target to $265 from $233. The stock was last seen at $228 after peaking at $250 after the earnings report ($180 before the report).
Other firms on Wall Street see stronger targets for Broadcom as well for 2025: JPMorgan at $250; TD Cower at $240; Benchmark at $255; Rosenblatt at $250; and BofA at $250. Many other calls were seen after the report as well.
CROWDSTRIKE – REPAIRING & GROWING
Crowdstrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) had almost fully recovered from its great “upgrade fiasco” this summer. It had peaked at $390 or so in July ahead of its major outage, but in early August it briefly went under $210. And by mid-December, Crowdstrike looked ready to challenge $390 all over again before the market whoosh took shares back down to $360.
Now Goldman Sachs is out calling for a continuation of its full recovery and hitting the quarterly $1 billion in annualized recurring revenue levels. Goldman Sachs just reiterated its Buy rating and raised its $372 prior target up to $415 in its call.
Earlier in December, Jefferies raised its target to $450 from $415 and Stifel raised its target to $400 from $375. JPMorgan also issued a target hike in December to $418 from $372. After earnings in late-November there were price target hikes from over a dozen firms and here is a list of those at $400 and higher: Evercore ISI ($400); Needham ($420); BofA ($400); Susquehanna ($400); Wells Fargo ($400); and Oppenheimer ($410).
META STILL FACEBOOK, BUT…
Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has its fans heading into 2025 as well. JPMorgan counts Meta in its top picks and best ideas for 2025. Meta Platforms is rated as Overweight and the price target was raised to $725 from $660. The firm sees a reasonable valuation and a potential huge win pending the final TikTok verdict if banned in the U.S. It is also winning from its AI efforts despite so much capital spending.
Meta is already up 69% YTD at $599, but the stock was up at $630 before the market whoosh. Other analysts have lifted their targets as well in December: Truist (Buy) to $700 from $650; Piper Sandler (Overweight) to $670 from $650; and Raymond James at $675.
NETFLIX KEEPS ON WINNING
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) is no stranger to bullish analyst calls. KeyBanc Capital Markets (Overweight) jumped on the bandwagon here and raised a prior $785 price target to $1,000 — noting that a highly competitive price/content environment is moderating and that live events like Tyson/Paul and NFL games on Christmas should drive more deep engagement. Netflix was recently at $913 and the analyst firm even noted excessive valuations (“the danger zone”) but still sees the stock rising.
If this 8% upside isn’t enough, here are some of the other calls that have been seen since the start of December — UBS (Buy) to $1,040 from $825; Oppenheimer (Outperform) to $1065 from $28; JPMorgan (Overweight) to $1,010 from $850. And in November, Pivotal Research issued its Buy rating and raised its target to $1,100 from $925. Netflix may also be hiding out as a 2025 stock split candidate as well.
NIKE CLEANS UP THE MUD, MAYBE…
Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) is still struggling and many analysts on Wall Street have very mixed views for 2025. With a new CEO even two incidents of throwing out the kitchen sink has not yet yielded rewards for its shareholders. Nike is down nearly 30% in 2024. The good news is that the “kitchen sink” has cleared the deck. Now Nike just has to figure its place in a world of tariffs for 2025. Robert W. Baird’s team sees the struggling stock now as a buying opportunity, with a warning that those returns will not be seen right away. While Baird trimmed the price target to $105 from $110, this represents 36% implied upside from the current stock price.
Nike beat consensus estimates and CEO Elliott Hill is now promoting a renewed strategic focus — increasing its performance-based innovation, improving segments, and a return to a full-priced marketplace across its channels. While the reset actions could weigh on Nike’s short-term investor confidence, Baird believes the stage is being set up for a product-led inflection for the start of fiscal year 2026. It also sees a strong stock appreciation as likely after the market begins to discount Nike’s margins and earnings in a recovery.
WHO IS PONY AI?
Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ: PONY) is a name many investors will have missed entirely. It priced a 20 million ADS IPO at $13.00 per ADS at the end of November. The timing was very “under the radar” for an autonomous AI platform that is really a vehicle-agnostic virtual driving system. It is based in China and is currently focused on developing a commercially viable and sustainable business model with a presence across China, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East. North America was given virtually no mention and this is a company very few investors have even seen or heard of.
Underwriter BofA issued a Buy rating and a $18 price objective. The firm noted that Pony is expected to ramp up its fleet size and turn profitable out in 2029 based on the experience of its virtual driver technology’s features like safety, cost-effectiveness and its ability to tackle difficult situations. It is also further ahead than its peers in China in accumulated testing mileage, testing speed and licensing progress.
If $18 is not a strong enough new price target, Goldman Sachs (also an underwriters) issued a new Buy rating and a $19.60 target for ADSs. After a prior close of $13.16, Pony AI closed up over 9% on the calls at $14.39.
REDDIT BLEW US ALL AWAY!
Reddit Inc. (NYSE: RDDT) has been on fire in 2024. The social media platform was already seen up 234% YTD and the $168 price of late was given three different big upside calls in December. On December 20, Guggenheim started it as Buy with a $210 price target after calling it in the early innings of a multi-year growth cycle with strong social media growth in quarters and years ahead from a highly engaged user base.
While Reddit is now worth almost $30 billion in market cap, Guggenheim’s calls are not alone. Morgan Stanley recently raised its rating to Overweight and raised its target from $70 to $200. Wells Fargo started coverage at Overweight and set a $206 price target.
SALESFORCE’s AGENTIC AI COMING FOR YOUR ANALYTIC JOB!
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) has seen massive analyst interest since its earnings showed significant upside ahead in its “Agentic AI” that can help to replace humans in complex tasks. The stock recently peaked at $369 after he earnings but a volatile market has shares back down to $343. BofA’s Brad Sills attended Salesforce’s Agentforce 2.0 launch (virtually) covering the Agentic AI and was encouraged by Salesforce’s platform progress. This boost from Agentforce may add another 1-2 points of revenue growth in FY26 and FY27. BofA’s target is now $440 for CRM. If that’s not aggressive enough, KeyBanc’s upgrade also went to a $440 target — and Oggonomics tracked more than 20 analyst price target hikes immediately after its earnings report.
Each of the ratings and price targets discussed in this report were announced by each brokerage firm referred to by name. Oggonomics does not necessarily agree with all of those ratings and price targets. Oggonomics does not maintain its own price targets and ratings on these and related stocks.
