Investing

5 Massive Upside Stocks for 2015

24/7 Wall St. has evaluated many top outside stock picks for 2014 from Wall Street analysts and market pundits. With the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P hitting new all-time highs throughout 2014 and with the bull market now nearing its sixth year, we wanted to see which analyst picks in mid-cap to large-cap stocks offer the most upside.

We have taken five top stock picks from multiple brokerage firm analysts in this review. Again, these are only in active mid-cap or large-cap stocks in order to avoid the crazy calls, which we will cover later. Some of these stocks still have very big upside targets on the surface, which is why we have gone in depth on the research call and on the expectations for the year ahead.

One consideration to keep in mind about the broad market is that the Santa rally may have eaten into expected 2015 gains. With the Dow up about 11% and the S&P 500 up about 15%, the Wall Street strategists are just not seeing as much huge upside to the year-end or peak targets in 2015. The consensus estimates for the S&P 500 from the strategists imply gains of close to 6% for 2015, plus the dividend yields to consider.

Boeing

At the start of December, Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was one of the top stocks to buy at Jefferies with big upside among the underperforming large cap stocks. The firm said that, while the company is forging ahead with the new and updated plane models, continued problems with the 787 Dreamliner are still pressuring Boeing, but at least they look closer to a more complete resolution. Jefferies thinks that orders should clearly top shipments, potentially doubling its backlog from 2013.

Boeing’s price target from Jefferies was $165, versus a current share price around $132, and that was before the dividend hike and buyback announcement. The Thomson Reuters consensus price target is just under $150, but there is a street-high analyst target price of $175. Jefferies has a target that implies 25% upside, and then the new dividend yield will be 2.75% for 2015.

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Celgene

Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ: CELG) had a massive gain in October, rising from about $86 to more than $115 by the start of December. Now its market cap is a whopping $90 billion. Earlier in December, UBS maintained its Buy rating and raised its price target to $130 from $112 after recent 2014 American Society of Hematology comments gave UBS more confidence in the safety and efficacy in key drug candidates and products. It even talked about a 29% five-year compounded growth rate on earnings. UBS talked up unrecognized value in its pipeline as well.

RBC also recently named Celgene a top biotech pick, with an even higher price target. The gain to the UBS target would be over 15%, but the street-high target price of $145 would generate upside of 28%. The trick here is that analysts have been chasing this stock higher and higher, so it seems possible to expect more of the same ahead.

Google

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was recently listed as one of several top tech picks by SunTrust analysts. They saw positive optionality in the company’s search business, as well as inroads being made on vertical search regarding specific segments of online content. Many Wall Street analysts also think that Google’s cloud product belongs in the second-tier of its business lines. Add in YouTube and other efforts, and growth may be seen for years.

Google’s price target at SunTrust was up at $675, some 26% higher than the $535 or so in the last hours of 2014. The consensus target is $644. If you do not want to trust SunTrust, no pun intended, Barron’s also has named it among one of its Top 10 Stock Picks for 2015, with some 20% upside implied in the article.

MGM Resorts

This casino operator was recently featured on a list of stocks with huge upside by Stifel. MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) is worth just over $10 billion in market cap and was shown as combining a strong presence in Las Vegas and a growing one in Macau. While MGM is still burdened with high debt, Stifel noted that at least some of that debt has been refinanced at lower levels.

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Stifel had a $32 price target on MGM’s stock at the time, and the consensus target was just under $29. Trading at $21.35 recently, it has a consensus analyst price target implies some 35% upside. The Stifel target, which was $1 shy of the street-high analyst price target, implies upside of right at 50%.

SolarCity

The top solar stock picks recently listed by Merrill Lynch included SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY). The $5 billion market cap and being the pure-play solar installation leader — tied to Elon Musk as well — was shown to have many long-term contracts providing visibility into future cash flows. Even though Merrill Lynch pointed out that the cost of funding may be higher going forward, the team believes this will remain below the 6% residual value calculations.

Does it matter that SolarCity has a financing pact with Bank of America (Merrill Lynch’s owner)? The firm most recently had a price objective all the way up at $95, and the consensus price target is still at $87 or so. With shares trading close to $54, there is big implied upside of 75% to the Merrill Lynch target and 61% to the consensus price target. There is of course the caveat that solar stocks are proving again to be leveraged bets on the price of oil, and knowing that price targets may need to come down.

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Again, the strategists seem to be looking for less than 10% upside from the S&P 500 in 2015. These five big and well-known stocks have implied upside above 25% and 30% — or almost a double in the case of SolarCity. If these calls turn out to be correct, let’s just say that investors can be very happy again in 2015!

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