11 S&P 500 Stocks That Could Soar 20% or More in 2020

Here, then, are 11 of the best S&P 500 stocks you can buy for outsize gains in 2020. Based analysts’ projected price returns, Wall Street expects these names to rally from 20% to more than 35% this year.

Night Takeoff Of The American Space Shuttle. 3D Illustration.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Never say never, but it's hard to see stocks follow their amazing 2019 returns for a second straight year.

S&P 500 stocks sent the index a whopping 29% higher in 2020. That's a big deal. Keep in mind that the market's long-term average annual gain comes to about 7.7%, then factor in the tendency for share performance to revert to the mean, and the odds of another boffo year are slim.

Indeed, years in which the S&P 500 rises at least 20% generate an average gain of only 6.6% the following year, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

But that doesn't mean investors can't try to replicate 2019's party by seeding their holdings with stocks expected to blow away the broader market. To find stocks primed to outperform, we scoured the S&P 500 for stocks with expected price gains of at least 20% this year. We supplemented that research by limiting ourselves to stocks that are Buy-rated or better by Wall Street analysts, as well as boast promising fundamentals, attractive valuations and other bullish features.

Here, then, are 11 of the best S&P 500 stocks you can buy for outsize gains in 2020. Based analysts’ projected price returns, Wall Street expects these names to rally from 20% to more than 35% this year.

Disclaimer

Share prices, price targets, analysts’ ratings and other data are courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence as of Jan. 9, unless otherwise noted. Companies are listed by implied upside, from lowest to highest. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price.

Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.