Persistent inflation and investor concerns about the timing of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts have led to market volatility.
While macro challenges may affect short-term sentiment, investors with a long-term perspective can use stock research from Wall Street analysts to help inform investment decisions and boost portfolio returns.
According to TipRanks, a platform that ranks stocks based on analysts’ past performance, these are the three stocks that top Street pros favor:
Monday
Our first stock of the week is Monday.com (MNDY), a workplace management software maker that surprised investors with strong first-quarter results, buoyed by strong demand for its products across all end markets.
Following the quarterly report, Goldman Sachs analyst Kash Langan reiterated his buy recommendation on Monday.com shares and raised his price target to $300 from $270. Despite the stock’s rally following the earnings release, the analyst still believes the stock is undervalued.
Langan described Monday.com as “a rare example of a company with foresight to improve NER.” [net expansion rate]Growing Momentum in , Enterprise, and SMBs [small and medium businesses] Strength and a healthy clip of FCF [free cash flow] margin.”
Langan noted that the company has strong pricing power in the small and medium-sized business sector, which reflects its high value proposition.
Overall, the analyst expects the rate of revenue deceleration to moderate and net new revenue growth to begin to stabilize. He said he believes Monday.com’s integrated platform will support a durable margin profile and drive long-term revenue growth.
Langan is ranked 388th out of more than 8,800 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings are successful 60% of the time, generating an average return of 10.7%. (See Monday.com Hedge Fund Trading Activity on TipRanks)
Walmart
Next up: big box stores Walmart (WMT) recently delivered better-than-expected revenue and profits for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. The company’s performance was driven by robust e-commerce sales growth, buoyed by in-store pickup and delivery, as well as strength in the third-party market.
Following the report, Baird analyst Peter Benedict reaffirmed his buy recommendation on Walmart shares and raised his price target to $70 from $65, saying he believes the company’s focus on value and convenience continues to attract customers from all demographics, and that most of its U.S. market share growth is driven by higher-income households — those making more than $100,000 a year.
The analyst’s price target increase “reflects WMT’s increasing momentum in restructuring its P&L through higher margin/ROI expansion.” [return on investment] Increasing revenue streams and automation initiatives.”
Benedict added that Walmart’s alternative revenue streams, such as advertising, marketplace, fulfillment services, data monetization and Walmart+, generate higher margins and complement the company’s core retail business.
Analysts estimate that these alternative revenue streams will generate about $7 billion in revenue, and he expects profits from these growth businesses to be a significant source of profits that will help fund investments in other growth areas for Wal-Mart.
Benedict is ranked 68th out of more than 8,800 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have produced profits 69% of the time, with an average return of 15.1% each. (See Walmart technical analysis on TipRanks)
CyberArk Software
Finally, let’s look at cybersecurity companies. CyberArk (CYBR). On May 20, the company announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire machine identity management provider Venafi from private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $1.54 billion.
CyberArk expects the transaction to close later this year. The company expects Benafy’s complementary machine identity security solutions to expand its overall addressable market by approximately $10 billion, to nearly $60 billion.
Following the acquisition announcement, TD Cowen analyst Shaul Eyal reiterated his buy recommendation on CyberArk shares with a $300 price target, noting that the company’s previous acquisitions (including Idaptive, Conjur, and Viewfinity) have been quickly and effectively integrated and have delivered strong benefits in recent years.
Venafi will be CyberArk’s largest acquisition to date, but Eyal said he believes the company’s management will maintain its strong track record of M&A.
Eyal emphasized that the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to CyberArk’s gross margins, operating margins and cash flow accretion. He added that the company is well positioned to generate significant revenue synergies through cross-selling, up-selling and geographic expansion. The company plans to leverage its extensive global go-to-market network to distribute Venafi’s solutions.
“CYBR’s existing 8,800 customers represent an early upsell/cross-sell opportunity (approximately 200 customer overlaps),” Eyal said.
Eyal is ranked 15th among more than 8,800 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings are successful 68% of the time and have delivered an average return of 26.7%. (See CyberArk ownership structure on TipRanks)
