Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia remains a favored stock on Wall Street heading into the new year. It has been a record year for the stock market, with all three major indexes notching multiple new all-time closing highs. With just a few days of 2024 left, the S & P 500 benchmark is on track for a 24% gain. Given the stock market’s strong performance in 2024, trying to find names with upside left in the year ahead may be difficult. Against this backdrop, CNBC Pro used its stock screener tool to search for names in the S & P 500 that still have at least 30% potential upside in 2025, based on consensus Wall Street price targets. To be included in the following table, stocks had to meet the following criteria, as of Dec. 17: Have a consensus analyst buy rating Have a potential upside of at least 30% next year, according to consensus analyst price targets Show a gain this year, which excludes stocks that only have a high upside due to substantial underperformance in 2024 It may be surprising that AI poster child Nvidia , which has already surged more than 170% in 2024, is included on the list. Yet, analysts think the stock could gain another 30% in the coming year. Cantor Fitzgerald recently reiterated its overweight rating on the stock and named it a best idea heading into 2025 in the semiconductor space. “NVDA is coming into its strongest product cycle ever in Blackwell, which will ramp throughout 2025 (followed quickly by Rubin in 2026), with a setup for continued strength in hyperscale spending and ongoing ramp of Enterprise and Sovereign AI infrastructure builds,” the firm wrote. Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target for the stock to $200, implying 48% upside from Friday’s close. Energy stock Diamondback Energy is little changed in 2024, but analysts expect it has upside of 36%. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs reinstated coverage of the name at a buy rating and set a 12-month price target of $227, approximately 46% above where the stock closed on Friday. “FANG continues to offer a prudent capital allocation strategy focused on per share growth in shareholder returns, which we believe will continue to create shareholder value,” analyst Neil Mehta wrote. The analyst also cited Diamondback’s recent closed merger with Endeavor Energy Resources as another catalyst. Analysts think clean energy stock First Solar could add another 48% to its nearly 6% year-to-date advance. Earlier in December, JPMorgan analyst Mark Strouse named First Solar as a top pick in the clean energy sector. The analyst maintained his overweight rating and $282 price target, which is approximately 54% above the stock’s closing price of $182.39 on Friday. “We view FSLR’s risk-reward favorably for a company that has the best visibility of companies under coverage into medium-term growth prospects owing to a backlog that stretches into later this decade,” he wrote. “We continue to believe that FSLR is well positioned vs our coverage and expect the stock to outperform the mean of our coverage universe over the next 6-12 months.” Other names on the list of top picks heading into 2025 include semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology , toy company Hasbro and hospital manager Universal Health Services .
