Stocks were trying to post a recovery on Friday after this week’s big sell-off in the high growth stocks. High valuations are of critical concern at the moment, but Wall Street isn’t throwing in the towel on many companies. JPMorgan is even calling for some established companies to have upside of 25% to 50% for strategic investors in Friday’s analyst report review. One stock is a key domestic rare earths player, but two of the stocks are established companies with long track records of revenues and earnings.
Oggonomics always reminds its readers that no single analyst report should ever be the sole reason to buy a stock. After all, analysts can get their upside thesis wrong and market fundamentals can change on a moment’s notice. Analyst reports are also never issued with assurances that upside projections will come to fruition, and they never have any “money-back” guarantees if the stocks lose money or do not perform up to expectations. Oggonomics does not maintain any formal rating, nor does it have any in-house price targets on the companies mentioned in this reporting.
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) needs no introduction, but JPMorgan added it to its “Positive Catalyst Watch” list based on increased earnings and comparable sales forecasts with solid margins. The firm already has an Outperform rating, but raised its price target to $97 from $89 — implying 26% upside from the current $77 share price, before factoring in the 5% dividend yield. The report even calls for stronger than expected earnings in Q3/Q4 that should drive higher valuations than the current 12-times earnings at current prices. Best Buy’s 52-week range is $54.99 to $95.49.
MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP) originally surged after its government investment and contract floor guarantees, but the stock is down 40% from its absolute highs. JPMorgan has now upgraded MP Materials to Overweight from Neutral with a $74 price target (down from $75) — still implying 25% upside in the only integrated domestic rare earths producer that is already in production. JPMorgan sees the national security concerns about rare earths being a secular concern, particularly for military needs, even if China has issued a one-year pause on its rare earth materials export restrictions. JPMorgan even noted that MP Materials stands ready to immediately begin addressing concerns about domestic rare earth materials and that MP’s ability to satisfy national security concerns has the shares undervalued after a pullback.
Q2 Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: QTWO) is already rated as Outperform at JPMorgan, but the firm placed Q2 on a “Positive Catalyst Watch” (code for strategic investors) and its $110 price target implies over 50% upside from the current $72 share price. The catalyst is that Q2 is pursuing “a large digital banking market opportunity” with a unified platform for its retail and commercial clients. JPMorgan sees the digital solutions provider to financial institutions and FinTech providers having significant expansion room from its existing customer base and from new customers via its Digital Banking Platform. The report was also specific in the JPMorgan says that the stock “should” outperform heading into the February earnings, and the consensus estimates from the other firms on Wall Street is already calling for double-digit earnings growth projections with a window to $1 billion in revenues in a few years. Q2’s 52-week range is $58.57 to $112.82 and it has a $4.5 billion market cap.
