Merrill Lynch Identifies Top Thematic Stock Picks for the Rise of Millennials

Investing

Published: March 4, 2016 10:25 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 12:23 pm

Thematic investing is one of those areas that sound great, because the aim is to capitalize on the themes that will prevail for the years or decade ahead. It also sounds a lot easier than it turns out to be.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has identified its top quarterly primer picks in several aspects for “A Transforming World,” and the millennials (or Generation Next) is one of those themes.

The Merrill Lynch report sees millennials being the number one global and U.S. demographic, and it sees them being the number one group in income and wealth by 2025. This creative disruption of the age group is changing sectors like autos, dining, finance, media, tech and travel.

Here are the top thematic picks from Merrill Lynch to profit off of the trends driving millennials.

Amazon

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) was the top pick for services and shopping use for millennials. The attraction here is Amazon’s leadership in e-commerce, the potential for delivery drones and, of course, for Amazon Web Services. Amazon is rated as Buy at Merrill Lynch with a price objective of $750.00.

Shares of Amazon traded at $577.49 on Friday. The stock has a consensus analyst target of $736.27 and a 52-week trading range of $365.65 to $696.44.