The US market performance in the last week was quite bullish, with the S&P, DOW, and NASDAQ boasting weekly gains of 3.71%, 3.73%, and 3.84% respectively. The week marked the last full week of the outgoing Democratic government, with Donald Trump set to be sworn in early next week.
Just like the last time he became President, Donald Trump is set to make some drastic changes once he takes over. His energy policy and stance on crypto will continue to be of focus for most traders. During the outgoing week, a lot of companies received the backing of Wall Street analysts, among them quite a few energy and automobile companies.
We looked at a few of those companies that received a boost from analysts this week. To come up with the list of 10 stocks that received analyst approval this week, we only considered companies with a market cap of at least $1 billion.
10. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)
First Solar Inc. is a Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy solutions provider worldwide. The company’s advanced thin film semiconductor technology offers environment-friendly solar panels. It is a leading CdTe (cadmium telluride) module supplier and the only American Company among the top 10 largest manufacturers of solar panels in the world. The company received an upgrade from Neutral to Buy with a target price of $274.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Rob Barnett said an increase in demand for energy to support AI and data centers is expected to boost the company’s sales by 25% from 2025-27. FSLR is planning to increase its solar manufacturing capacity from 18.5 GW to 25 GW by 2026.
Although the company’s stock price incurred a downturn in the previous month, it has shown an upward trend over the last five trading days. This upward trend continues to draw investors’ attention at a time when Trump’s energy policy is in focus.
9. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Netflix Inc. is a global entertainment services provider that offers a wide variety of documentaries, games, TV series, and movies. The company’s target price was downgraded from $1065 to $1040 by Oppenheimer based on valuation concerns. However, the analyst acknowledged that there were hardly any business headwinds and didn’t downgrade the rating. Seaport Global upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral, showing they were more bullish on the stock than Oppenheimer.
At the end of 2024, the stock underperformed the S&P 500. Moreover, the company’s valuation is not attractive right now. At this point, investors are concerned about the continuous decline in share prices since last month. However, as the analyst ratings show, a lot of the current pessimism is priced in. The impact of the second season of Squid Game show will become apparent during this quarter and that could act as a catalyst for the stock’s next rally.
There has been a huge transition in the TV and movie industry in the past 10 years. Being a streaming giant NFLX remained on top among its closest competitors (Amazon Prime Video and Disney) in terms of subscriber count. Having a high CFC ratio (the ability to pay back debt) of 22% shows its sound finances, despite having to spend large amounts of money on creating fresh content. Given all this information, Netflix is still the top choice for customers looking for streaming options. Investors can consider this downturn in price as an opportunity to re-analyze their investment strategy.
