Top Wall Street analysts like the growth opportunities of these three stocks

The new year has only just begun, but overall uncertainty is already looming over investors, with Federal Reserve officials raising concerns about inflation and its impact on the path of interest rate cuts.

In these difficult times, investors can boost their portfolio returns by adding stocks backed by strong financials and long-term growth opportunities. The investment thesis of top Wall Street analysts can inform investors as they select the right stocks, as professionals base their analyzes on a solid understanding of the macro environment and company-specific factors.

Here are three stocks he likes Best street prosAccording to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their performance.

We start with a ride-sharing and food delivery platform Uber technologies (Uber). The company achieved better than expected revenues and profits for Third quarter of 2024although the total bookings did not live up to expectations.

Recently, analyst Mizuho James Lee The company reiterated a Buy rating on Uber Technologies shares with a $90 price target. The analyst believes that 2025 is an investment year for UBER. While these investments could impact the company's EBITDA in the near term, they are expected to fuel growth in the long term.

Based on his analysis, Lee expects Uber's growth investments to deliver a 16% CAGR in underlying gross bookings from FY23 to FY26, in line with the company's Analyst Day target of mid- to high-teens growth. The analyst is confident that Uber's EBITDA growth is on track with the analyst's day target of 30-40% CAGR. “Despite the bias toward growth investments, economies of scale and increased efficiency should offset margin risks,” Lee said.

In addition, Lee believes that concerns about the growth of the company's mobility business appear to be overblown. The analyst expects FY25 gross bookings growth (FX neutral) to be at the highest levels, with a moderate slowdown compared to the second half of 2024.

Furthermore, the analyst expects total bookings for Uber's delivery business to remain in the mid-teens in FY25. This increase is expected to be supported by increased adoption of new segments while maintaining food delivery market share. The analyst added that Mizuho's checks revealed that repeat orders had reached an all-time high. The checks also indicate strong adoption of grocery products in the US, Canada and Mexico along with strong user penetration.

Lee is ranked No. 324 out of more than 9,200 analysts tracked by TipRanks. Its reviews were profitable 60% of the time, generating an average return of 12.9%. See Uber Technologies stock charts on TipRanks.

We move on Datadog (dog), a company that provides cloud surveillance and security products. In November, the company reported better-than-expected results for the third quarter of 2024.

On January 6, analyst Moness Brian White I reiterated a Buy rating on Datadog shares with a price target of $155. The analyst believes the company has a more balanced approach to the generative AI trend, “avoiding the ridiculous claims being made by many across the software complex.” He noted that DDOG has performed well compared to its peers on the back of challenging programs in 2024, but added that it has lagged other stocks in the Monness coverage universe.

However, White believes Datadog, and the broader industry, will start to see increased activity over the next 12 to 18 months from the long-term boom in generative AI. Highlighting DDOG's outperformance compared to its peers and transparency regarding its AI production progress, the analyst noted that native AI customers accounted for more than 6% of the company's annual recurring revenue (ARR) in Q3 2024, up from More than 4% in 2024. Q2 2024 and 2.5% in Q3 2023.

White also highlighted some of the company's AI offerings, including LLM Observability and its own general AI assistant, Bits AI. Overall, the analyst is bullish on Datadog and believes the stock deserves a premium valuation compared to traditional software vendors given its cloud-native platform, rapid growth and strong secular tailwinds in the monitoring space, as well as new generation AI-driven growth. Growth opportunities.

White is ranked No. 33 out of more than 9,200 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His evaluations were profitable 69% of the time, and achieved an average return of 20%. See Datadog ownership structure on TipRanks.

Semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA) is our third stock pick of the week. The company is a major beneficiary of the generative AI wave and is seeing excellent demand for the advanced GPUs (graphics processing units) required to build and run AI models.

After a friendly chat with Nvidia CFO Colette Kress, a JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sor It reaffirmed a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $170. The analyst highlighted the CFO's assertion that ramping up production of the company's Blackwell platform is on track despite supply chain challenges, thanks to strong execution.

Furthermore, the company expects spending in the data center space to remain strong in calendar year 2025, supported by Blackwell's ramp-up and broad-based demand strength. Furthermore, Sor noted that management sees tremendous revenue growth opportunities, as it captures a larger portion of the $1 trillion installed base of data center infrastructure.

Sur added that NVIDIA expects to benefit from the shift to accelerated computing and the growing demand for artificial intelligence solutions. Management believes the company has a strong competitive advantage over ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) solutions due to several strengths, including ease of adoption and its comprehensive systems solutions.

Suhr agreed with this view, saying: “We believe that enterprises, vertical markets, and sovereign customers will continue to prefer Nvidia-based solutions.”

Among other key points, Sur highlighted the introduction of next-generation gaming products and opportunities to expand beyond high-end gaming into markets such as AI-enabled PCs.

Sur is ranked No. 35 out of more than 9,200 analysts tracked by TipRanks. Its reviews were profitable 67% of the time, and generated an average return of 26.9%. See Nvidia hedge fund activity on TipRanks.