Analysts' Top S&P 500 Stocks to Buy Now

Shopping for stocks when markets are trading at record levels might sound counterintuitive. After all, the idea is to buy low. But there are always select names set to outperform — and that's especially true when market leadership is comparatively narrow.

Although the Magnificent 7 stocks have done much of the bull market's heavy lifting, that hardly means these names are doomed to underperform from here. Indeed, as we'll see below, four of Wall Street's top-rated stocks to buy hail from the Magnificent 7. Companies from the healthcare, energy and industrials sectors are ably represented too.

Here's how we found the top S&P 500 stocks to buy now. It's well known that industry analysts are reluctant to slap Sell ratings on the names they cover. There are a bunch of reasons for this, some more defensible than others. What's less commonly understood is that Strong Buy recommendations, while not nearly as rare as Sell calls, are in somewhat short supply too.

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If you run a screen of the S&P 500 using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, you'll see that analysts assign a consensus recommendation of Sell to a total of two stocks. (That's not abnormal during raging bull markets.)

At the other end of the ratings spectrum stands the Street's highest recommendation of Strong Buy. A total of 17 stocks made the cut there (unchanged from a month ago), as you can see in the chart below.

But first a note on our methodology: S&P Global Market Intelligence surveys analysts' stock recommendations and scores them on a five-point scale, where 1.0 equals Strong Buy and 5.0 means Strong Sell. Any score of 2.5 or lower means that analysts, on average, rate the stock a Buy. The closer the score gets to 1.0, the stronger the Buy call.

In other words, lower scores are better than higher scores.

Have a look at the chart below to see the 17 stocks in the S&P 500 that score an elite Strong Buy recommendation from industry analysts. Investors who fear it's too late to buy Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) or Nvidia (NVDA) will be happy to see they easily made the list.

Please note that Amentum (AMTM), Erie Indemnity (ERIE), Synopsys (SNPS), S&P Global (SPGI) and NiSource (NI) made the cut this month. Meanwhile, TE Connectivity (TEL), United Airlines (UAL), ServiceNow (NOW), Howmet Aerospace (HWM) and Elevance Health (ELV) fell off the list of top-rated S&P 500 stocks.

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