Wall Street’s bearish price targets for the stocks in this article signal serious concerns. Such forecasts are uncommon in an industry where maintaining cordial corporate relationships often trumps delivering the hard truth.
Whatever the consensus opinion may be, our team at StockStory cuts through the noise by conducting independent analysis to determine a company’s long-term prospects. That said, here are two stocks poised to prove Wall Street wrong and one facing legitimate challenges.
One Stock to Sell:
AECOM (ACM)
Consensus Price Target: $120.86 (8.4% implied return)
Founded in 1990 when a group of engineers from five companies decided to merge, AECOM (NYSE: ACM) provides various infrastructure consulting services.
Why Does ACM Give Us Pause?
- Backlog has dropped by 1.6% on average over the past two years, suggesting it’s losing orders as competition picks up
- Gross margin of 6.4% reflects its high production costs
- Poor expense management has led to an operating margin of 4.3% that is below the industry average
At $111.54 per share, AECOM trades at 21.6x forward P/E. Read our free research report to see why you should think twice about including ACM in your portfolio.
Two Stocks to Watch:
Uber (UBER)
Consensus Price Target: $96.54 (6.2% implied return)
Notoriously funded with $7.7 billion from the Softbank Vision Fund, Uber (NYSE: UBER) operates a platform of on-demand services such as ride-hailing, food delivery, and freight.
Why Will UBER Outperform?
- Monthly Active Platform Consumers have increased by an average of 13.9% annually, giving it the potential for margin-accretive growth if it can develop valuable complementary products and features
- Incremental sales significantly boosted profitability as its annual earnings per share growth of 183% over the last three years outstripped its revenue performance
- Free cash flow margin increased by 17.7 percentage points over the last few years, giving the company more capital to invest or return to shareholders
Uber is trading at $90.92 per share, or 21.5x forward EV/EBITDA. Is now the right time to buy? Find out in our full research report, it’s free.
VeriSign (VRSN)
Consensus Price Target: $253.84 (-9% implied return)
While the company is not a domain registrar and does not directly sell domain names to end users, Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) operates and maintains the infrastructure to support domain names such as .com and .net.
Why Is VRSN on Our Radar?
- Billings growth has averaged 15.6% over the last year, indicating a healthy pipeline of new contracts that should drive future revenue increases
- Superior software functionality and low servicing costs are reflected in its best-in-class gross margin of 87.8%
- Robust free cash flow margin of 57.5% gives it many options for capital deployment
VeriSign’s stock price of $278.88 implies a valuation ratio of 16.4x forward price-to-sales. Is now a good time to buy? See for yourself in our in-depth research report, it’s free.
High-Quality Stocks for All Market Conditions
The market surged in 2024 and reached record highs after Donald Trump’s presidential victory in November, but questions about new economic policies are adding much uncertainty for 2025.
While the crowd speculates what might happen next, we’re homing in on the companies that can succeed regardless of the political or macroeconomic environment. Put yourself in the driver’s seat and build a durable portfolio by checking out our Top 6 Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025).
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today for free. Find your next big winner with StockStory today. Find your next big winner with StockStory today
