5 Top Stock Picks For 2018

Top RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney has just revealed his top stock picks for 2018. These long cap and small cap internet stocks look set to significantly outperform the market. Indeed large-cap internet stocks are already up 26% (on average) in 2017- with the FANG stocks (FB, AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL) surging 45%. But, as Mahaney says, that’s the past. Let’s look forward.

TipRanks shows that five-star Mahaney is a top analyst to follow. As we can see here, his ranking of #33 out of 4,719 analysts is based on an impressive 68% success rate and 21.4% average return. And if we change the measurement date to two years instead of one, his rating rises as does his success rate (72%) and average return (44.5%).

We took this opportunity to review five of Mahaney’s top stock picks for 2018. So let’s dive in and take a closer look at these premium stocks- all of which have serious growth potential:

Facebook Inc (Nasdaq: FB)

Social media giant Facebook is Mahaney’s no.1 top large-cap long for 2018. The stock’s ‘current low market shares’ (5% of global total advertising and 15% of global online advertising) will ensure that FB ‘maintains premium growth for a long time’. Moreover, its growth-adjusted valuation is very attractive at 25X P/E for 30%+ EPS growth.

“We still see dramatic opportunities for FB to monetize its messaging platforms (FB Messenger and WhatsApp)” says Mahaney. He adds: “[FB-owned] Instagram showed the strongest trends and momentum throughout 2017 across all social media platforms.” The analyst has a bullish $230 price target on the stock.

Overall, FB has a ‘Strong Buy’ analyst consensus rating with 29 recent buy ratings vs just 1 sell rating. This sell rating comes from Pivotal Research’s Brian Wieser who says the stock is trading too high above his $136 price target (24% downside!). However, on average the Street believes FB can climb a further 17% to $210. Note that you can click on the screenshot below for further stock insights.