What the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) giveth, fears of overspending on AI taketh away. Case in point: Oracle (ORCL).

Shares in the mega-cap tech name have lost more than half their value since hitting an all-time closing high in September 2025, shedding about $500 billion in market cap in the process. That's roughly the equivalent to the market values of Dow Jones stocks UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and Goldman Sachs (GS) combined.

But as brutal as ORCL stock's recent history has been, long-time shareholders should be quite happy with their returns. Even after this latest plunge, Oracle stock has been a market-beating machine for ages.

Founded in the late 1970s, Oracle really hit its stride during the dot-com boom when it became dominant in database management systems. After the bubble burst, the company pursued an aggressive policy of acquisitions, scooping up software and hardware firms such as PeopleSoft and Sun Microsystems.

Oracle's voracious appetite transformed the company into what's known as a full-stack provider, offering enterprise customers everything from software and middleware to databases and hardware. But the acquisitions were also very expensive, pressuring margins at a time when year-over-year revenue growth was hard to come by.

Happily for Oracle shareholders, the company pivoted toward cloud computing. Undaunted by competition from the likes of Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Cloud, Oracle launched Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to provide cloud-based services for a range of enterprise needs.

When AI exploded on the scene at the end of 2022, Oracle was well positioned to take advantage of the industry's insatiable demand for computing power.

Today, Oracle has a $455 billion pipeline of contracts to supply computing power for AI. Indeed, the tech stock practically went vertical in September 2025 after the enterprise database and cloud-services provider signed a massive deal with OpenAI. The latter, which is best known for ChatGPT, agreed to buy $300 billion in computing power from Oracle over five years.

"Oracle management has assembled the newest and one of the most formidable hyperscaler companies in the worldwide enterprise market," writes Oppenheimer analyst Brian Schwartz, who rates shares at Outperform (the equivalent of Buy). "We see Oracle as a long-term beneficiary of the software industry secular trends driving revenue growth and operating leverage for the company."

Joining the AI gold rush allowed ORCL stock to gain 70% through the first nine months of 2025, adding about $400 billion in market cap in the process.

And then the bottom fell out.

Massive spending on its AI build-out (Oracle targeted $50 billion in capital expenditures for fiscal 2026), negative free cash flow and more than $100 billion in debt caused sentiment on the name to change right quick.

The bottom line on Oracle stock?

But then, the "legacy tech company" label is something Oracle has been struggling to shake off for years. A middle-aged tech firm couldn't really compete for attention when the Magnificent 7 got all the glory as AI plays.

And yet ORCL stock has done very well by shareholders for a very long time.

Over its entire life as a publicly traded company, ORCL generated an annualized total return (price change plus dividends) of 17.3%. That clobbers the S&P 500's return of 10.7% over the same time frame.

And as for the past two decades? Oracle stock has been a buy-and-hold winner.

Have a look at the above chart and you'll see that if you invested $1,000 in Oracle stock 20 years ago, today your stake would be worth about $15,000 – good for an annualized total return of 14.4%.

The same amount invested in the S&P 500 would theoretically be worth about $7,800 today, or an annualized total return of 10.7%.

Wall Street likes Oracle's chance of maintaining its market-beating ways. Of the 43 analysts covering ORCL stock surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 26 call it a Strong Buy, six say Buy, 10 rate it at Hold and one says Strong Sell.

That works out to a consensus recommendation of Buy, with strong conviction to boot.

More Stocks of the Past 20 Years

• If You'd Put $1,000 Into Intel Stock 20 Years Ago, Here's What You'd Have Today
• If You'd Put $1,000 Into IBM Stock 20 Years Ago, Here's What You'd Have Today
• If You'd Put $1,000 Into Apple Stock 20 Years Ago, Here's What You'd Have Today

Anyone who expected turbulence amid Elon Musk's quest to acquire Twitter (TWTR) got precisely what they anticipated Friday morning, when the Tesla (TSLA) CEO tweeted that the Twitter deal was "temporarily on hold."

TWTR shares plunged roughly 10% early Friday following Musk's tweet, which linked to a May 2 Reuters story about Twitter's recent statement that "the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our [monetizable daily active users] during the quarter."

Musk later tweeted that he is "still committed to acquisition," which helped cut into the losses somewhat, though another seed of doubt was already sown.

"[Musk] is clearly intent in querying the company's estimate that spam accounts make up less than 5% of active daily users – a key metric given that establishing an accurate number of real tweeters is considered to be key to future revenue streams via advertising or paid for subscriptions on the site," says Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst for U.K. firm Hargreaves Lansdown.

But she also raises the possibility of an ulterior motive.

"There will also be questions raised over whether fake accounts are the real reason behind this delaying tactic, given that promoting free speech rather than focusing on wealth creation appeared to be his primary motivation for the takeover," Streeter says. "The $44 billion price tag [of the Twitter deal] is huge, and it may be a strategy to row back on the amount he is prepared to pay to acquire the platform."

That price tag might seem like even more of a stretch now than when Musk first got involved with Twitter.

"I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced," Musk said in April when he declared his bid for the social media platform.

Since then, the S&P 500 and the communication services sector have both declined by double digits, with many high-priced technology and tech-esque shares plunging precipitously.

Twitter, to be fair, is roughly flat since then. But this latest hurdle puts his once seemingly imminent Twitter deal even further in doubt among investors and analysts alike.

The market has yet to price TWTR shares at the $54.20 level Musk offered in April. Not even after Musk revealed earlier this month that backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Oracle (ORCL) founder Larry Ellison were lined up to help provide more than $7 billion in financing.

As of Thursday's close, TWTR shares were trading 15% below Musk's bidding price. In Friday's premarket trade, that number was nearly 30%.

Wall Street's pros appear mildly skeptical the Twitter deal closing, too. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the 27 analysts who currently cover Twitter have an average price target of $51.50 and collectively consider the stock a Hold.

Big data stocks might not seem like the most scintillating technology plays on the market. But their underlying companies provide a service of growing importance: cleaning and sorting an ever-swelling pool of digital data.

The proliferation of technologies from smart phones to cloud computing to the internet of things (IoT) has resulted in torrid growth of data being processed. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this pace. According to International Data Corporation, the amount of digital data generated during the next five years will be "greater than twice the amount of data created since the advent of digital storage."

However, much of these giant, complex pools of data (dubbed "big data") is effectively useless. That has in turn put heightened importance on technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Sophisticated algorithms sort through data to weed out noise and detect trends and other insights. Use cases include warding off cybersecurity threats, anticipating which factory equipment needs maintenance and determining whether customers will churn.

A number of software companies build tools, systems and platforms for dealing with big data. But which of these tech stocks boasts the most promising futures?

Read on as we explore some of the best big data stocks to buy right now.

Data is as of May 1. Analyst ratings courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Stocks are listed by analysts' consensus recommendation, from highest score (worst) to lowest (best).

• Market value: $195.8 billion
• Analysts' ratings: 5 Strong Buy, 2 Buy, 18 Hold, 2 Sell, 1 Strong Sell

Oracle (ORCL, $73.40) might seem like an odd pick. It's not a pure play like the other big data stocks on this list. It's a mature company that has been around since the mid-1970s. And Wall Street has cooled on its prospects of late.

But don't sleep on this old-guard tech name, which boasts several major advantages, including a strong sales organization, a powerful global infrastructure and a trusted brand.

Oracle has been revamping its database tools, which has included heavy investment in cloud technologies. That has paid off of late – fiscal second-quarter cloud revenues were up 22% year-over-year, and its most recently reported results (fiscal Q3) jumped 24%.

"Oracle's strong FQ2 and FQ3 results and management guidance commentary for FQ4 and FY2023 reinforce our view that Oracle is well-positioned to emerge as the #3 or #4 vendor in the PaaS/IaaS market and as the #2 vendor in the SaaS market – enabling the company to continue to reaccelerate revenue growth," says Credit Suisse, which rates the stock at Outperform.

Another source of potential growth has come via acquisition. In late December, Oracle agreed to buy out Cerner – a leader in patient data systems for healthcare organizations – for $28.3 billion. Oracle plans to integrate its own systems into Cerner's platform, such as autonomous databases, low-code development tools and the Voice Digital Assistant.

The healthcare industry is poised for transformation, and the opportunity is massive; health spending accounts for roughly 20% of U.S. GDP. Technologies like Cerner's will be essential as healthcare service providers try to both modernize and cut costs.

• Market value: $4.2 billion
• Analysts' ratings: 3 Strong Buy, 3 Buy, 7 Hold, 0 Sell, 0 Strong Sell

New Relic (NEWR, $63.27) develops software that mines substantial amounts of data to find real-time insights. The technology allows for observability, which detects errors in information technology infrastructures and fixes them. The result: Customers get better performance out of transformational projects.

The company's business model is based on data growth of just about every kind. Examples include Pixie data (for telemetry information), logs from cloud providers and Prometheus data (events and alerts). "This data set, which includes all of the data we ingest, not just the data we charge for, is growing at around 50% year over year," New Relic says.

New Relic's acquisition of CodeStream, announced in October 2021, should also be a driver for growth. CodeStream is a sophisticated developer platform that makes it easier to discuss and review code. The system makes it possible to debug telemetry data, which helps developers make better apps.

While the revenues have come under pressure, that's to be expected as New Relic has focused more on the consumption-based model, though that transition is nearing completion.

"New Relic's shift to a Consumption-based model is largely complete with more than 80% of the business migrated by the end of 3QFY22," says Needham, which rates the stock at Buy. "The remaining ~20% is expected to migrate as renewals for multi-year Subscription contracts come due."

Analysts are projecting annual revenue growth in the high teens this year and next, and while NEWR is expected to more than double its adjusted net loss in 2022, it's expected to produce a small profit by 2023. Raymond James, which rates this big data stock at Strong Buy, believes both growth and profitability will pick up over the next few quarters.

• Market value: $19.6 billion
• Analysts' ratings: 15 Strong Buy, 9 Buy, 15 Hold, 0 Sell, 0 Strong Sell

Splunk (SPLK, $122.02), which was founded roughly 20 years ago, is a pioneer in analyzing machine-generated data. Splunk's customers have gained valuable insights as a result, whether that's through monitoring the health of IT networks or detecting cybersecurity threats.

This big data stock is enjoying a productive 2022 so far, up about 5% in a down market. That's a refreshing change of pace following the stock's steep decline in late November 2021, when CEO Doug Merritt unexpectedly resigned – one in a number of high-level departures across the year.

But there are plenty of reasons to be bullish on the firm.

Splunk received a vote of confidence last summer, when Silver Lake Partners – a top tech private equity firm whose deals include Airbnb (ABNB), Dell Technologies (DELL) and UiPath (PATH) – invested $1 billion in the company.

Also, Splunk's business transition to the cloud is flashing signs of paying off. During the most recent quarter, cloud annual recurring revenue (ARR) spiked by 75% year-over-year to $1.1 billion. The company boasted 270 customers with ARR greater than $1 million, which was nearly double the year-ago number.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Cisco Systems (CSCO) expressed interested in acquiring Splunk for $20 billion, but as of right now, it appears a deal will not happen. But it's still an indication that larger tech companies are looking to big data stocks as a source of growth.

If SPLK's stock price remains depressed – it's 45% off its September 2020 high and trading for around 7 times sales – other suitors might emerge. Indeed, analyst outfit Jefferies named SPLK as one of 20 small- and mid-cap names to buy for GARP (growth at a reasonable price).

• Market value: $38.0 billion
• Analysts' ratings: 11 Strong Buy, 8 Buy, 4 Hold, 1 Sell, 0 Strong Sell

Datadog (DDOG, $120.78) is one of the top players in the big data world.

Datadog develops software to help with monitoring and security for cloud applications. It combines various must-have applications, such as for app performance, log management and real-time observability. About 33% of the customers use four or more products, up from 22% a year ago.

It also continues to come up with new offerings, such as the Sensitive Data Scanner, which helps to discover, classify and protect sensitive corporate information (a major pain point).

DDOG boasts simply staggering growth rates – fourth-quarter revenues shot up by 84% to $326.2 million, an acceleration of the full-year rate of 70%. Better still: The company is generating profits. Datadog reported 2 cents of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings per share in Q4, up from a 5-cent loss in the year-ago period. Operating cash flow (OCF) was $115.8 million, with free cash flow (FCF, the cash remaining after a company has paid its expenses, interest on debt, taxes and long-term investments to grow its business) at $106.7 million.

"We reiterate our Outperform rating on DDOG following very strong [fourth-quarter] results that should refute concerns over the state of the observability market following deceleration at competitors," says Raymond James analyst Adam Tindle, who rates the stock at Outperform (equivalent of Buy).

We'll note that Datadog is not cheap, trading at a plump 36 times sales. But a wide swath of Wall Street's analyst community is very bullish on DDOG shares regardless of that premium.

• Market value: $7.1 billion
• Analysts' ratings: 9 Strong Buy, 4 Buy, 5 Hold, 0 Sell, 0 Strong Sell

One of the biggest challenges with big data is that it is usually scattered all across an organization's various divisions. That can make it more difficult to usefully analyze said data.

Dutch firm Elastic (ESTC, $76.14) has seized on this opportunity by developing a sophisticated search engine for the enterprise. This engine integrates with myriad systems, allowing it to provide insights for an entire organization. It also has built a powerful self-serve model for customer adoption that has helped accelerate growth.

The latest quarter highlighted the benefits of Elastic's strategy. Elastic Cloud revenues of $80.4 million were up 79% year-over-year. The company said its net expansion rate was just below 130%, slightly above the prior quarter. And total customer count was over 17,900, compared to more than 17,000 in the prior quarter and 13,800 in the year-ago period.

There's also plenty of runway for long-term growth. The company's latest investor presentation says the total addressable market for its software tools is about $78 billion. William Blair's Kamil Mielczarek (Outperform) has a much more modest TAM estimate of $44 billion, but even then, that implies less than 2% penetration for Elastic.

"A large portion of this TAM is still greenfield, where the customer's existing observability solution is legacy, internally built, or nonexistent," Mielczarek says. "The greenfield opportunity, combined with an expected TAM growth rate of at least midteens, leaves Elastic significant opportunity to continue to grow before it will be meaningfully affected by competitive pressures."

Mielczarek is just one of 13 analysts in a crowded bull camp for ESTC, which is top-rated among the five big data stocks listed here.

Consumers have felt the sting of higher prices for months. Since May, annual inflation has been running at 5%, with October's consumer price index rising 6.2% from the year prior – the biggest such jump since 1990.

That's one reason why analysts, when picking their best stocks to buy now, are focusing on pricing power.

When companies face cost pressures – through higher prices for shipping and raw materials, for example – they have to choose whether to raise prices on their goods or services, or absorb the hit and let margins suffer. The best-positioned firms are those that can pass most of those prices along without consumers balking and taking their business elsewhere.

In a recent report, UBS identified several high-conviction picks that it views as "strong pricing power stocks" – those able to raise prices on products and that have solid margin momentum. The investment bank found that shares of companies with strong pricing power outperformed those without by around 20%, on average, over the following 12 months once inflation rises above 3% on an annualized basis, which is currently the case.

With that in mind, here are seven of the best stocks to buy now for a pricing power advantage, according to UBS. In addition to enjoying a high-conviction Buy rating from UBS, each pick ranks in the top third of its sector for pricing power, margin momentum and input cost exposure.

Data is as of Nov. 17. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price.

• Sector: Technology
• Market value: $300.6 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• UBS' 12-month price target: $330 (7.5% implied upside)

Salesforce.com (CRM, $307.09) changed the way salespeople find and track leads by providing access to the service over the internet from a web browser, which was revolutionary in its day. The company also introduced the Software-as-a-Service (Saas) concept – or a pay-as-you-use model – helping clients avoid upfront installation costs and software upgrade maintenance.

The company remains the "clear leader" in salesforce automation and its software is considered "mission-critical" to sales teams in helping them generate revenue, according to Morningstar. Salesforce went from no product to 33% market share in 20 years.

UBS analyst Karl Keirstead says this about the company: "Salesforce is the market share leader within its two core markets (Sales and Service), which competes against legacy offerings from Oracle (ORCL) and SAP (SAP)."

Keirstead notes that demand for applications such as CRM "remains strong," raising his confidence about the company's ability to keep posting robust financial results. Healthy topline growth gives credence to the company's outlook of 20% for its operating margin in fiscal 2023, which was higher than what Wall Street expected.

This improved margin forecast is "sustainable" driven by three things: revenue outperformance, permanent shift to work from home, Zoom customer interactions and renewed internal cost controls, Keirstead says.

Wall Street analysts seem to agree that this is one of the best stocks to buy now. The consensus rating for CRM is a Buy with an average price target of $325.73, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

• Sector: Consumer cyclical
• Market value: $272.0 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.6%
• UBS' 12-month price target: $185 (7.7% implied upside)

If there's a company whose pricing power could be expected to remain strong under any economic environment, it is Nike (NKE, $171.83). For the seventh year in a row, Nike was named the world's most valuable apparel brand by global brand valuation consultancy firm Brand Finance in its 2021 report.

As the world's largest athletic apparel, shoes and equipment company, Nike has a history of signing endorsement deals with key athletes including Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin Durant and Tiger Woods. This partnership with the best athletes gives sales a lift: A whopping 77% of NBA basketball players in the 2020-21 season wore Nikes or its Converse or Jordan shoes, according to shoe database Baller Shoes DB.

The company's revenue track record speaks to this brand dominance: Since 2010, sales have risen year-over-year with the exception of last year's pandemic. The longer-term trend is expected to resume this year, with analysts projecting a 5.8% rise in annual revenue to $47.1 billion.

NKE is also known for its innovation, from introducing pressurized air in the soles of running shoes more than 40 years ago to today's Nike Air Zoom Viperfly designed specifically for the 100-meter dash, and many others.

UBS analyst Jay Sole believes Nike's sales momentum can continue. He cites three sales growth drivers: industry trends, market share gains and channel mix shift. In recent years, NKE has been focusing more on its direct-to-consumer distribution channel as a growth engine.

Despite Nike's longevity and iconic brand status, Sole says the market "doesn't fully appreciate how the company's investments in product innovation, supply chain and e-commerce are working in concert to drive unit growth and ASP [average selling price] increases."

He sees NKE as a "long-term outperformer" that is expected to generate 18% earnings per share growth annually in each of the next four years.

The pros on Wall Street tend to agree. They have a consensus Buy rating on the stock with a $180.37 average price target.

• Sector: Real estate
• Market value: $37.8 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.7%
• UBS' 12-month price target: $380 (9.4% implied upside)

Thank SBA Communications (SBAC, $347.38) for the ability to access the internet, text or make calls on mobile phones and other wireless devices. The company owns and operates wireless infrastructure – cell towers, antenna placements on buildings and rooftops, distributed antenna systems and small cells (low-powered radio access nodes). Organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT), SBA has operations in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and South Africa.

Mobile data usage has been exploding and it is set to expand even more as 5G becomes ubiquitous. UBS analyst Batya Levi points out another catalyst: For the first time in years, all U.S. mobile carriers will be active in network deployments in the next 12 months. These include T-Mobile's (TMUS) 2.5 GHz rollout, Dish Network's (DISH) network buildout, 5G efforts and more.

Another reason SBAC is on this list of the best stocks to buy now is that network deployment internationally is about five years behind the U.S., meaning more business will be in the pipeline for the company. Internationally located towers make up about 20% of SBA's business, the analyst notes.

"Tower growth is strong, defensible and we believe SBAC is well positioned to capitalize on industry trends of rising data usage and increase carrier activity alongside the multi-year 5G investment cycle," Levi writes.

The analyst expects U.S. wireless capital expenditures to increase by around 10% to a record $35 billion this year and ramp up another 10% next year to nearly $40 billion. In contrast, spending has topped $30 billion a year in the past decade, Levi says.

As for analysts' consensus view toward SBAC: the average rating is Buy and price target is $370.11.

• Sector: Industrials
• Market value: $27.7 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• UBS' 12-month price target: $500 (14% implied upside)

Generac Holdings (GNRC, $438.68), a name synonymous with home backup generators, has been positioning itself for a clean energy future. Since 2019, the company has been expanding its home solar and energy storage businesses while maintaining market dominance in its core fossil-fuel generator business.

UBS analyst Jon Windham believes Generac can make inroads into the residential solar market due to its customer acquisition platform that will let it take market share from incumbents such as SolarEdge (SEDG) and Enphase (ENPH).

Also, its recent acquisition of microinverter firm Chilicon Power will transform GNRC into a "one-stop shop for residential clean energy solutions, unique within the solar supply chain, and providing Generac's installer network with a compelling value proposition," he says.

Generac also can use its market prowess – it has a 75% market share in North American home backup generators – to expand in the solar and energy storage market. The company's competitive advantages include its brand, experience converting marketing leads to sales, its existing customer service infrastructure, installer support and others, according to UBS.

"GNRC provides a relatively uniquely diversified opportunity to which investors can gain exposure to the rapidly growing solar and storage market with underlying earnings stability from Generac's core business of recession-resilient home standby power," the analyst says.

Another reason this is one of the best stocks to buy now: GNRC is cheap relative to its solar inverter peers. Specifically, shares are trading around 39 times 2021 estimated price-to-earnings (P/E) compared to 70 times for the latter.

Most of Wall Street is in agreement with UBS. The consensus analyst rating is a Buy, with an average price target of $505.53.

• Sector: Technology
• Market value: $2.5 trillion
• Dividend yield: 0.6%
• UBS' 12-month price target: $175 (15.9% implied upside)

When it comes to pricing power, it will come as no surprise to most consumers that Apple (AAPL, $151.00) – which revolutionized the smartphone market in 2007 with the iPhone – has loads of it. If Nike is the world's most valuable apparel brand, AAPL is the world's most valuable brand overall, according to Brand Finance.

Apple's slew of products and services are familiar to most people: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Apple TV+, Apple Music, CarPlay and more. But with the iPhone – the biggest source of the company's revenue by product – at 14 years old and looking long in the tooth, investors are looking to AAPL's future bets to drive higher growth.

One of those bets is in the battery electric vehicle (BEV) market. Over the years, AAPL has invested in self-driving car licenses and remote-sensing LiDAR patents, according to UBS. Analyst David Vogt says he sees the company introducing a branded battery electric vehicle at some point and potentially snagging at least a 5% share in the global BEV market.

Apple's self-driving vehicle ambitions have been talked about for years. In January, Korean media reported that Apple was in talks with Hyundai to develop a self-driving electric car – though the automaker has since said the two were not involved in any such projects.

This comes after a December 2020 Reuters report that suggested Apple is not only aiming to produce a car, but also to introduce a new battery design that will drastically reduce battery costs and increase range, according to a person with knowledge on the matter. Now in June, Reuters reported, per those familiar with the effort, that Apple was in early stage talks with Chinese battery manufacturers to develop this battery.

"We believe Apple's significant cash flow should enable it to enter the battery electric vehicle market," Vogt says. "Although Apple is not a first-mover, its significant resources should enable the company to be a 'fast follower' in time" for the coming explosion in demand for electric vehicles. He sees the global auto market to become nearly 100% electric over the next 10 years.

The bulk of analysts are bullish on AAPL, too. The consensus rating among those tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence is Buy and the average price target is $167.11.

• Sector: Healthcare
• Market value: $218.4 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.3%
• UBS' 12-month price target: $365 (19.4% implied upside)

Danaher (DHR, $305.59), a medical, industrial and commercial instruments company, adheres to the Japanese "kaizen" philosophy of continuous improvement, which became the basis for its Danaher Business System (DBS) way of operating.

This way of doing business is an "important" factor to consider when finding the best stocks to buy, according to UBS analyst John Sourbeer. DBS is a "lean operating model" encompassing all facets of planning, hiring, decision-making and benchmarking across the whole company. "DBS is Danaher," he says. "As such, it's critical for current or prospective shareholders to understand what DBS entails, what benefits it affords Danaher, and how to assess its future impact."

DBS posits that "exceptional people develop outstanding plans and execute them using world-class tools to construct sustainable processes, resulting in superior performance." Superior performance and high expectations then attract exceptional people, which propagates the cycle. Four priorities guide these efforts: Quality, Delivery, Cost and Innovation.

Historically, the company has grown through acquisitions. There is room for future merger and acquisition (M&A) activity to drive returns and share price appreciation, Sourbeer says. He is projecting a compound annual growth rate of around 7% for DHR's revenue over the next three years, which is higher than Street consensus of 6%.

Still, Sourbeer thinks he might be conservative in his forecast "given (Danaher's) increasing exposure to high-growth areas (pharma, bioproduction, diagnostics) and M&A upside. Further, DBS is driving operational excellence."

The consensus rating on Wall Street is Overweight (Buy), while the average stock price target is $339.17, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

• Sector: Energy
• Market value: $53.8 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.2%
• UBS' 12-month price target: $119 (29.5% implied upside)

The fracking revolution made America a net oil exporter instead of importer, a milestone that occurred in 2018 for oil and refined fuels for the first time in decades. EOG Resources (EOG, $91.90) is one of the largest independent oil producers in this market, with nearly all its production coming from U.S. shale fields. A former division of now-bankrupt oil giant Enron, EOG split off in 1999 and has not looked back.

The company differentiates itself by identifying prospective areas for exploration before competitors, enabling it to get attractive leasehold rates, according to Morningstar. EOG also has more experience in shale wells than most peers, resulting in above-industry average productions in new wells. Today's higher energy prices also boost revenue.

UBS analyst Lloyd Byrne believes EOG will be able to keep increasing shareholder returns. He points out that the company raised its base dividend by 10% this year to $960 million and paid a special dividend of $600 million as well. For 2022 to 2023, EOG is expected to generate $9 billion of cumulative free cash flow after base dividends, he says.

"With significant amount of free cash flow, we believe EOG will continue returning capital back to shareholders in the form of increasing base dividends, special dividends and share buybacks," the analyst writes.

As for handling inflationary pressures, EOG is "well positioned" to mitigate higher prices expected in 2022, Byrne says. He notes that the company expects to see flat to lower costs for drilling, including rigs, and completion services – accounting for around half of well costs. It can do this by reducing the number of drilling days, negotiating contracts at lower rates, and others.

The general view on Wall Street is that EOG is one of the best stocks to buy now. The consensus rating as a Buy and the average price target arrives at $108.30.

The partial U.S. government shutdown is now into its fourth week, making it the longest-ever political standoff of its kind.

While critical functions such as defense and mail delivery still are operating, other less-vital units have been mothballed, including several national parks and many Washington, D.C., monuments. A handful of agencies are somewhere in between, furloughing some nonessential workers while keeping essential ones at work to maintain the absolutely necessary aspects of their service.

The ripple effect of the shutdown, however, has extended well beyond the circle of government employees and agencies. While government shutdowns typically don't hamper the stock market, a few publicly traded stocks and privately owned companies are starting to feel the pinch. These firms either provide contracted services and goods for the government, or cater to government employees who (for now) aren't receiving a paycheck.

Here are seven companies that have been (or that analysts think could be) adversely impacted by the shutdown.

Data is as of Jan. 15, 2019.

Most arms of the federal government outsource their heaviest technological needs. The U.S. intelligence community, for instance, uses Microsoft’s (MSFT) Office 365 for US Government. The CIA has tapped Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services unit to build a private cloud. International Business Machines (IBM) soon-to-be-subsidiary Red Hat (RHT) has been one of the few outfits to divulge how much of its revenue comes from government customers (10% for the past three years).

Exactly how the government shutdown could crimp technology-company earnings isn’t perfectly clear. Even when the nature of these products isn’t classified, most firms still aren’t forthcoming. But Oracle (ORCL, $48.38) CEO Mark Hurd at least acknowledged in a recent interview, “There is ongoing government contracts, ongoing government business, frankly ongoing government projects that in some cases take a pause with all this, so that certainly is an issue.”

Morgan Stanley believes 15% of the company’s sales are driven by federal government customers. Oracle has neither confirmed nor denied the estimate. Even if some of those sales are being made and paid-for, at least some piece of Oracle’s top line might be in jeopardy.

The timing of the shutdown is unfortunate for Oracle, too. The company’s fiscal third quarter began in early December and won’t end until the end of February, putting the span of the shutdown entirely within the quarter. Even if it ends soon, government spending might not reach full speed again until Oracle’s fiscal Q4.

Several of the air travel industry’s shutdown-related issues are well-known at this point. Unpaid Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are calling in sick, leaving airports with longer security lines; air-traffic controllers are working without pay, but the longer this goes, the more industry workers could seek out different employment.

• Delta Air Lines (DAL, $47.83) is facing its own headaches, and it’s not the aforementioned logistical issues. Instead, it’s the fact that government employees do a lot of flying.

“We’re seeing a reduction in revenues in January,” says Delta CEO Ed Bastian, who said the losses are “not huge,” but still offers a specific number: “about $25 million due to the fact that government contractors and some government officials are not traveling the way they would anticipate because of the shutdown.”

And while some workers will be paid for their hours once the shutdown ends, Delta can’t exactly go back in time and retroactively earn that business.

That’s not the only sales hit that Delta and its peers face. Indirectly, airlines can’t put new planes into service because they require safety inspections from government employees who currently aren’t working. Delta had planned to put brand-new Airbus (EADSY) A220 jets into service on Jan. 31, but unless the shutdown ends in time, that can’t happen. A330-900neos also could be affected.

One last consideration; New routes also must be approved by regulators that are presently furloughed. However, it’s not clear whether Delta has been forced to postpone the development of any new flights.

It’s arguably more bark than bite, but Columbia Sportswear (COLM, $82.73) reports it’s also on the wrong end of this political stalemate. That’s because campers and outdoor enthusiasts from coast to coast are locked out of the country’s currently closed national parks.

“We would expect that people who want to go outdoors need apparel and need footwear to enjoy the outdoors and we expect that over time this will definitely have an impact,” said Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, who did not cite any specifics about the shutdown’s impact. Boyle was specific in his blame though, pointing the finger at both parties. “We want both sides to come together to get this solved and get parks open again,” he said.

Ashford, Washington-based sporting goods company Recreational Equipment, Inc. (better known as REI) delivered a response to the government shutdown, too – not about the impact to its own business, but others. In addition to describing the toll being taken on national parks, REI says, “On an average day in January, 425,000 park visitors spend $20 million in gateway communities across the U.S.,” citing numbers from the National Parks Conservation Association’s government affairs team.

Neither Uber nor Lyft are publicly traded – yet. However, both ride-hailing services could find their initial public offerings postponed. The Securities and Exchange Commission still is monitoring markets, but workers that would review and respond to registration filings aren’t being allowed back to their desks yet. This may or may not impact the Lyft or Uber IPOs; it’s largely a matter of timing.

Both companies have confirmed they’ve submitted the initial paperwork required to take their respective organizations public. But that’s only the first step in what could be a lengthy process as SEC officials review these documents and request more information as needed. It can take months for some companies to finalize their filings and get the SEC green light for a public offering.

Renaissance Capital principal Kathleen Smith is concerned in that regard, telling MarketWatch, “As the government shutdown continues into 2019, a backlog is building that will delay the IPO process for companies of all sizes, including the large tech deals such as Uber, Lyft, Slack, Pinterest, etc., that are on file confidentially.”

Timothy Kviz, BDO’s national assurance managing partner for SEC services, added that he worries much of the idle IPO paperwork will have “gone stale” by the time regulators review it. That would force those organizations to start over on an updated submission.

The United States’ Armed Forces personnel still are on the job. Defense contractors still are doing development work, too, as most major projects were planned and started well before the government shutdown began. However, some individual contractors that do day-to-day service work in areas such as IT support and consulting aren’t working and aren’t being paid.

The matter leaves some companies in a lurch.

For larger players such as $77 billion Lockheed Martin (LMT) or $48 billion General Dynamics (GD), it’s not much of a hardship because much of the work they are doing is deemed important enough to continue doing. And in cases where it's not, those companies have plenty of liquidity to continue paying personnel. But the situation might be more difficult to navigate for smaller companies such as $2.7 billion Science Applications International (SAIC, $63.29).

Specifically, SAIC has to spend $10 million per week to keep those staffers paid, even though the federal government isn’t reimbursing the company for that work Making matters worse, Science Applications says the government is now as much as $50 million behind in its payments due the company.

SAIC might be harder-hit, but it’s hardly alone. Bloomberg estimates an average of $200 million worth of contracted business per day is not being awarded to anyone in the industry during the shutdown.

If anything, temporarily out-of-work government employees might have more time to spend watching television, slightly bolstering ratings for CBS (CBS, $47.80) in an environment that otherwise shouldn’t impact the entertainment industry. But there’s one nuance to the timing of the shutdown that has a small chance of being problematic.

CBS has the honor of airing this year’s Super Bowl, scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 3. Granted, it paid for the honor, but selling 30 seconds worth of ad time at more than $5 million a pop makes it a worthwhile investment. Indeed, for some viewers, the commercials themselves are the more entertaining aspect of the Super Bowl.

However, it’s possible that some of the game’s would-be advertisers won’t be able to run the ads they were hoping would introduce new products with a splash.

Consumer technology companies are vulnerable to this possibility. The FCC must approve any new product before it can be in the United States, but this arm of the FCC isn’t operating right now. No tech outfit has yet reported a cancellation of plans to unveil a new device during the Super Bowl, but newly launched 5G services and smartphones would have benefitted from the kind of exposure only the big game can provide.

Beer companies are in the same spot. Any alcoholic beverage company looking to launch a new product ahead of the game hasn’t been able to win the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s approval, as the department has been shuttered since late December. Those industries are traditionally key buyers of Super Bowl ad time.

To be clear: The potential pain (however minimal) to CBS is currently just speculative, with no reports that anyone has yet canceled an ad for these reasons. At this moment, it is merely a possibility.