Some of the most highly rated stocks rely on rapid sales growth, but the list also includes some value-oriented companies.

A selection of Wall Street's most popular stocks against the S&P 500 index shows many familiar names, but a deeper analysis of valuations indicates that these stocks are not all favored for the same reasons.

The following screening shows the stocks in the S&P 500 with the highest proportion of buy or equivalent ratings based on the survey of analysts by FactSet. These data are presented through two tables, which include valuation based on consensus expectations for earnings per share and sales in 2025, as well as the expected growth rates for these metrics.

Filtered from the constituents of the S&P 500, a large-cap U.S. benchmark index, are 492 companies covered by at least nine FactSet survey analysts. These analysts are 'sell-side' analysts, who are researchers providing research reports for brokerage firms or for brokers to share with their clients.

Among these 492 companies, these 10 have the highest proportion of buy or equivalent ratings among analysts surveyed by FactSet:

In order: Axon Enterprise (AXON.P), Delta Airlines (DAL.N), Microsoft (MSFT.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), Nvidia (NVDA.O), Schlumberger (SLB.N), Micron Technology (MU.O), Walmart (WMT.N), General Electric (GE.N), Becton Dickinson (BDX.N).

The total returns for 2025 are in the right column of the table, including reinvested dividends. This year, six of these 10 companies had total returns exceeding the overall return of the S&P 500 by 28.2%.

While keeping the order of companies unchanged, we also add the S&P 500 index at the bottom of the table for comparison, let's take a look at the valuation ratios and expected growth rates for earnings per share and sales in 2025. The consensus expectations driving these numbers have been adjusted to fit the annual data of certain companies (such as Microsoft and Nvidia, whose fiscal years do not align with the calendar year).

Axon Enterprise tops the list as the only stock with a 100% buy or equivalent rating. Year-to-date, the stock has returned 147%, second only to Nvidia's 173% return on the list.

Axon manufactures the electric stun guns used by law enforcement agencies, as well as other equipment and cloud- and AI-based systems for law enforcement operations and investigations. In a report to clients in November, Jefferies analyst George Notter referred to Axon's new 'AI Era' product and service suite as a 'landmark masterpiece'.

This new suite includes Axon's 'Draft One', which provides transcription services for officers using body camera data, thereby reducing the time required to write reports. In the company’s recent earnings call, Axon President Joshua Isner stated that the standalone price for Draft One is currently $65 per officer per month, plus $20 for transcription services. He added that the company is considering pricing the 'AI Era' suite at $199 per month, while the total price of the components in this suite is expected to be between $250 and $350, including everything (according to transcription content provided by FactSet).

However, the list also includes some value stocks, such as Delta Airlines, Schlumberger, Micron Technology, and Becton Dickinson, all of which have price-to-earnings ratios below the overall level of the S&P 500 index. In terms of price-to-sales ratios, five of these companies are valued below the S&P 500 index, including Walmart.

Article reposted from: Jinshi Data