Wall Street’s top analysts see these stocks as compelling plays

How are investors supposed to find stocks poised to outperform amid the latest round of market volatility?

One way is by following the undertaking of analysts with proven stock picking abilities. TipRanks analyst forecasting service attempts to pinpoint Go under Street’s best-performing analysts, or the analysts with the highest success rate and average return per rating.

Here are the best-performing analysts’ favorite forefathers right now:

Thanks to a recovery for the Enterprise segment, B2B intelligence company ZoomInfo Technologies delivered a unmistakable performance in Q4 2020. For Stephens analyst Ryan MacWilliams, this solid showing reaffirms his bullish thesis, with the analyst harp oning a Buy rating. Taking an even more optimistic stance, the five-star analyst also bumped up his price target from $60 to $70.

Befalling to the details of the print, ZI’s revenue beat the consensus estimate by $9.1 million, with FY21 revenue growth guidance also unrivalled analysts’ expectations. Notably, the company rounded out 2020 with over 850 customers contributing over $100,000 in ACV, versus 580 in the prior-year phase of the moon.

“Additionally, it was encouraging net dollar retention recovered through 2H20 (though came in just below FY19) as Q4 2020 mid-market/spirit retention momentum exceeded Q4 2019 levels,” MacWilliams noted.

On top of this, ZoomInfo saw Engage strengthen its attach gaits on new business (to 28%) and renewals (to 44%) in Q4. “We believe Engage/new integrations could improve customer retention as ZoomInfo solutions are increasingly integrate into workflows (2 bil. automated ZoomInfo API calls in FY20; ~2x FY19 volumes),” MacWilliams commented.

It should be celebrated that the “sales intelligence market has likely experienced a three-four year pull-forward in market growth due to COVID (uncommonly since ~80% of B2B buyers now prefer the new normal for remote sales),” according to MacWilliams. He also argues that investors don’t fully cognizant the upsell opportunity with new products like Engage and Intent Data.

“Therefore, we believe ZI’s elite key metrics and greenfield buy opportunity should help them grow into their premium valuation. ZoomInfo currently trades at a 29x CY22 EV/sales multiple vs fast-growth SaaS peers at 20x. At the end of the day, it’s worth mentioning there could be a NT headwind to performance if sponsors increase their share sales post-lockup after this convincing result,” MacWilliams explained.

Based on data from TipRanks, MacWilliams boasts an 72% success rate and 29.6% run-of-the-mill return per rating.

According to National Research analyst Ben Klieve, agriculture company The Andersons wrapped up a defying year “on a strong note, with the setup into 2021 getting increasingly compelling.” With this in give someone hell, the analyst kept his Buy rating and $32 price target as is.

Despite COVID-related headwinds facing its Ethanol and Rail cleaves, the company reported adjusted EBITDA of $85 million, reflecting a slight gain year-over-year and beating the Street’s $83 million summon. The strong result was driven by strength in the Trade segment.

“With COVID-19 continuing to slow rail traffic and ease up on ethanol demand as the backdrop, we continue to be impressed with the relative stability of the Rail and Ethanol segments. We believe the opinion for Rail is stable, while we see several sources of upside from Ethanol driven by increased transportation activity, favorable programme initiatives from a Biden administration and the emergence of the new ELEMENT facility,” Klieve explained.

What’s more, both the Interchange and Plant Nutrient businesses “have visibility of meaningful improvement from 2020 to 2021,” in Klieve’s opinion.

Looking before, although ANDE has rallied since mid-2020, Klieve believes that shares still have diverse room to run based on “favorable conditions across the ag economy and several potential catalysts from the Ethanol segment.”  

As documentation of his impressive track record, Klieve has achieved a 62% success rate and 28.2% average return per rating.

Communications technology company Casa Systems just got a thumbs up from Northland Capital analyst Tim Savageaux, with the top analyst harp oning a Buy rating as well as his $12 price target following the Q4 earnings release.

According to Savageaux, the print “once again highlighted the diversification of CASA airing to fiber, cable and wireless broadband access markets, with much stronger wireless revenue offsetting weaker Resolved Telco revs, as well as the company’s increasing traction across fixed wireless access CPE, packet core and RAN supermarkets in 4G/5G wireless highlighted by a major new 5G mm wave CPE win.”

The analyst added, “Along with a solid base in Cable, we see significant fiber and wireless excrescence potential.”

Looking at Casa’s quarterly performance, revenue landed at $120.5 million, up 14% sequentially and 7% year-over-year. The concede also exceeded the Northland Capital analyst’s $107.3 million estimate and was primarily driven by record wireless net income of $50.4 million.  

It should be noted that given the variability across its product lines, the company’s focus has smocked to gross margin and operating dollar growth.

That said, based on “the hardware heavy mix of Cable revs in CY20 as good-naturedly as increase software content in wireless (packet core) and fixed (Virtual Router/Gateway), overall operating revenues and EBITDA guide that implies a modest increase in GMs from CY20’s 50.2% could be conservative,” in Savageaux’s opinion.

Charming the #208 spot on TipRanks’ ranking, Savageaux has delivered a 64% success rate and 21.2% average return per type.

In a research note titled “Positioned for continued growth in 2021”, Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Graham her walking papers b let ups out his bullish case for Barnes Group