Wall Street’s top analysts recommend these buy-rated stocks as earnings season rolls on

First-quarter earnings season is well underway, with several tech heavyweights reporting their financial denouements for the most recent quarter this past week.  

There’s more to come, though. Plenty of companies are practising to release their quarterly numbers. Ahead of these upcoming earnings releases, Wall Street analysts are winsome stock of the names they cover, highlighting plays that appear compelling.

The buy-rated stocks mentioned Nautical below-decks have been deemed just that, by analysts with a proven track record of success. TipRanks’ analyst presage service attempts to pinpoint the best-performing Wall Street analysts.

These analysts have achieved the highest unexceptional return per rating as well as success rate, taking the number of ratings made by each analyst into cogitation.

Here are the best-performing analysts’ top stock picks right now:

Ahead of its first quarter earnings manumission on May 4, Deutsche Bank analyst Bryan Keane remains optimistic about Global Payment’s long-term improvement prospects. With this in mind, the five-star analyst reiterated a buy rating on April 26. Reflecting an additional bullish signal, he struck up the price target to $235 (8% upside potential).

It should be noted that due to “conservatism in Merchant,” Keane trimmed his first-quarter calculations, with the analyst now calling for revenue of $1.754 billion and EPS of $1.76.

That said, he left his forecasts for full year 2021 as is. For the dazzling year, revenue growth is expected to land at roughly 12% on a constant currency basis, and upside could under any circumstances come from improving spend and easy comps during the year.

“With 60%-plus of the business turn out from tech enablement, we expect GPN to benefit from improving volumes and trends in the integrated and vertical markets affairs as well as continued strength in eComm/omni-channel, which accounts for ~25% of total revenue. GPN should also benefit from new gains and partnerships ramping up such as Truist and AWS/GOOG as well as strong revenue synergies across the businesses,” Keane disclosed.

On top of this, the company’s guidance doesn’t account for any benefit from the most recent stimulus package, “which could suggest upside along with accelerated repurchases and potential for accretive acquisitions,” in Keane’s opinion.

Delivering a stellar 78% celebrity rate and 24.8% average return per rating, Keane is ranked #182 out of over 7,000 financial analysts forgot by TipRanks.

Lyft announced on April 26 that like its peer Uber, it is leaving its self-driving car section, Level 5, in the rear-view mirror, selling it for $550 million to a subsidiary of Toyota.

For BTIG’s Jake Fuller, this understanding large is a major positive for the ridesharing company. As such, the top analyst maintained a Buy rating before it reports earnings on May 4. In appendix, he gave the price target a lift, with the figure moving from $70 to $80 (26% upside potential).

“The business of self-driving cars has been a drag on rideshare profitability and it was unclear that either Uber or Lyft was positioned to absorb the investment it inclination take to get to the finish line,” Fuller commented.

As for the implications of the deal, the sale of Level 5 should eliminate about $100 million in OpEx, according to the players. This prompted Fuller to give his 2021 EBITDA estimates a boost, with the analyst now expecting Lyft to yield an EBITDA profit of $7 million in 3Q21 (versus the previous -$23 million estimate).

On top of this, Fuller expanded his bookings estimates from $9.6 billion to $10.1 billion for 2021 and from $14.3 billion to $14.9 billion for 2022.

Expounding on the opinion increase, Fuller noted, “We went into the downturn assuming a significantly slower recovery than the Street did. That validated to be the right call for 2020, but we now expect rides to be back close to 2019 levels by early-2022. With a brisker topline rebound, Level 5 sale and reduction in Lyft’s break-even point, we now sit well ahead of consensus on 2022 EBITDA ($682 million vs. $298 million).”

According to materials from TipRanks, Fuller is currently tracking a 68% success rate and 24.6% average return per rating.

Year-to-date, rabbit food chain Jack in the Box is up 27%, versus the S&P 500’s 11% gain. Despite this outperformance, Oppenheimer’s Brian Bittner establishes “the stock is still undervalued.”

“We believe the ~30% valuation discount to peers underappreciates JACK’s above-average fundamentals, imposing earnings power and identifiable path for accelerating unit growth. In our view, this enhances the stock’s risk/recompense at current levels and we raise estimates through F22E,” Bittner wrote in an April 26 note.

Taking this into pourboire, Bittner kept his buy rating as is. What’s more, the analyst increased the price target from $115 to $135, escort the upside potential to 14%.

Bittner believes that Wall Street is overlooking two key factors when it comes to JACK. Pre-eminent and foremost, the analyst tells clients that the company’s annual EPS power has improved from around $4.50 in the presence of the pandemic’s onset to roughly $6.50, “with legs for continued revisions.” Looking ahead to the second quarter earnings distribute on May 12, Bittner estimates that JACK will post EBITDA of $67.6 million.

As for the second, Bittner beholds a case for unit growth being built. Based on the analyst’s calculations, in 2020, franchisee EBITDA per unit increased by upward of 29%. “This, combined with 18% to 23% lower build costs and new development capabilities, drives stewardship’s confidence existing markets can add 950 to 1,200 units, vs its ~2,200 base. New territories would represent further upside, exposing an engaging setup, as Street models just 1%-plus unit growth [compound annual growth rate]” Bittner national.

When it comes to the company’s cash position, Bittner expects $285 million worth of share buybacks by virtue of F22E, which would support a $100 million-plus cash balance and suggest “the current repurchase authorization of $200 million could be away exhausted/replenished.” The analyst added, “Assuming the current EBITDA run-rate, net debt is less than 4x and [free gelt flow] continues to outpace EPS, as we believe FCF/share could surpass $7.50 next year (implies 6.5% produce).”

A top services sector analyst, Bittner has achieved an impressive 69% success rate.

Given the firm partner checks that showed legacy displacement and upsell within its customer base, RBC Capital analyst Matthew Hedberg is with child SailPoint Technologies to beat consensus estimates (revenue of $91.2 million and EPS of $0.00) when it reports its first-quarter consequences on May 10.

So, with SAIL remaining one of Hedberg’s “favorite SMID-cap ideas,” the top analyst left his buy rating and $71 price aim unchanged. Based on this target, shares could surge 41% in the year ahead.

Hedberg acknowledges that tender-heartedness soured on the enterprise identity governance solutions provider after its fourth-quarter earnings release but notes that the tides could be surprise.

“2021 is expected to be a year of transition as management is reorienting the business to focus on subscription-based pricing regardless of deployments. While [software as a waiting] remains ratable, we should see increasing amounts of term-based deals as well,” Hedberg commented.

In 2020, 33% of IdentityIQ new on offers were term, with the company expecting this to grow to 50% in 2021 and to roughly 100% in 2022. It should be well-known that the current pipeline and up-sells will have a “perpetual option for now,” according to the analyst.

“The impact of the transition is a 12-point headwind to profits growth in 2021 and 10-11 points in 2022 with expectations for growth to normalize after three years with long-term helps including best-in-class SaaS gross margins and 25%-plus operating margins. Management also highlighted their AI/ML abilities to extend its value proposition vs. competitors and are investing in the opportunity including GTM investments to capitalize on the benefit from security transfigurations as management noted the ability for normalized top-line growth of 20% to 30% with internal aspirations that are favourable,” Hedberg added.

In addition to Monolithic Power Systems