U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday following the release of jobs data, with the S&P 500 surging to fresh high during the session.
All three major indices closed higher last week, with the Nasdaq Composite jumping 3.5%, and the S&P 500 adding around 2% during the period. The Dow, meanwhile, added around 0.7% last week.
Wall Street analysts make new stock picks on a daily basis. Unfortunately for investors, not all analysts have particularly impressive track records at predicting market movements. Even when it comes to one single stock, analyst ratings and price targets can vary widely, leaving investors confused about which analyst’s opinion to trust.
Benzinga’s Analyst Ratings API is a collection of the highest-quality stock ratings curated by the Benzinga news desk via direct partnerships with major sell-side banks. Benzinga displays overnight ratings changes on a daily basis three hours prior to the U.S. equity market opening. Data specialists at investment dashboard provider Toggle.ai recently uncovered that the analyst insights Benzinga Pro subscribers and Benzinga readers regularly receive can successfully be used as trading indicators to outperform the stock market.
Top Analyst Picks: Fortunately, any Benzinga reader can access the latest analyst ratings on the Analyst Stock Ratings page. One of the ways traders can sort through Benzinga’s extensive database of analyst ratings is by analyst accuracy. Here’s a look at the most recent stock picks from each of the five most accurate Wall Street analysts, according to Benzinga Analyst Stock Ratings.
Analyst: Mark Kelley
- Analyst Firm: Stifel
- Ratings Accuracy: 88%
- Latest Rating: Initiated coverage on Life360, Inc. (NASDAQ:LIF) with a Buy rating and a price target of $37 on July 2. This analyst sees around 15% increase in the stock.
- Recent News: On June 3, Life360 announced the launch of its initial public offering in the U.S. of 5,750,000 shares of its common stock.
Analyst: William Stein
- Analyst Firm: Truist Securities
- Ratings Accuracy: 87%
- Latest Rating: Maintained a Hold rating on Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a price target of $162 on July 3. This analyst sees more than 35% downside in the stock.
- Recent News: On July 2, Tesla reported second-quarter deliveries that declined from a year ago, although improving from the first quarter.
Analyst: Brian Chin
- Analyst Firm: Stifel
- Ratings Accuracy: 85%
- Latest Rating: Maintained a Buy rating on SMART Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGH) with a price target of $27.5 on July 3. This analyst sees around 16% upside in the stock.
- Recent News: SMART Global said it will release its third quarter financial results, after the closing bell on Tuesday, July 9.
Analyst: Rob Owens
- Analyst Firm: Piper Sandler
- Ratings Accuracy: 85%
- Latest Rating: Downgraded rating on CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) from Overweight to Neutral with a price target of $400 on July 2. This analyst sees around 3% gain in the stock.
- Recent News: On June 27, the cybersecurity company announced partnerships with Ingram Micro, M3Corp and Tecnología Especializada Asociada de México in order to boost distribution of the company’s Falcon platform across Latin America..
Analyst: Peter Arment
- Analyst Firm: Baird
- Ratings Accuracy: 84%
- Latest Rating: Maintained an Outperform rating on General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD) with a price target of $345 on July 2. This analyst sees over 22% upside in the stock.
- Recent News: General Dynamics said it will webcast its second-quarter 2024 earnings results conference call on Wednesday, July 24.
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