Bank Of America: 3 Hot Stocks With Big Millennial Exposure

Is your portfolio ready for “the world’s most important demographics”? This is a question that Bank of America Merrill Lynch has been considering recently. They noted that millennials i.e. ages 19-23, are now the largest living generation in US history. And coming up fast behind is Generation Z i.e. anyone under 18.

Crucially, BAML predicts the combined income from these two age groups at a whopping $62 trillion by 2030. This is up from an estimated $21 trillion in 2015. To benefit from this explosion, BAML put together a valuable list of 17 buy-rated stocks with notably high millennial exposure. These are stocks which have millennial-focused sales and business models.

“We need to prepare for the rise of the 2.4bn Centennials — born at the turn of the century and set to live to over 100Y,” stated top BAML equity strategist Beijia Ma. “They are embracing diversity, sustainability, globalization, disruptive technology, ‘peak stuff,’ new business models, and entrepreneurialism like no generation before them — and they are economically optimistic to boot.”

However Ma added that investors need to take a close look at each stock’s fundamentals before investing. While these stocks have a big long-term catalyst demographically speaking, each stock has its own factors propelling prices.

Let’s take a closer look now:

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB)

FB may be in a bit of pickle right now data-wise, but the stock still has the thumbs up from the Street. It recently transpired that FB shared user data with 60 device makers, including China’s Huawei. However the company has now added new accountability and transparency requirements that should limit data sharing between businesses. And top-rated Deutsche Bank Lloyd Walmsley has just reiterated his Buy rating (without a price target). He says that audience reach data shows stability at Facebook.

Top-rated MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson goes one step further. He ramped up his price target to $250 (33% upside potential) from $240 previously. For Sanderson, Facebook is a top pick and the current topline outlook is ‘far too conservative.’ He believes there is a strong possibility for multiple expansion- and is confident that prices are set to soar. Indeed, the opportunity from FB’s photo-sharing app Instagram is massive.

“Instagram is growing at a rapid pace, and we believe it will pass the 1 billion average monthly user mark in the back half of 2018,” reported five-star KeyBanc analyst Andy Hargreaves. “We believe ad revenue will grow over 100% year-over-year in 2018 to $8.9 billion. We estimate Instagram will make up 26% of Facebook’s total ad revenue by 2020 (up from 11% in 2017).” He has a $245 price target on FB.

Our data shows FB as a ‘Strong Buy’ stock. In the last three months 32 analysts have published buy ratings on FB, vs just 1 hold and 1 sell rating. Meanwhile the average analyst price target of $220 indicates 15% upside potential from the current share price. You can click on the graph below for further stock insights.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Spotify (NYSE: SPOT)

Popular music streaming service Spotify has just released its first results as a publicly-listed company. SPOT delivered strong results with strong premium revenue, higher monthly active users (at 170 million) and better ad revenue. “Importantly, video advertising was SPOT’s fastest growing source of ad revenue and we continue to believe a solid runway for growth exists in this vertical as the platform is highly conducive to high viewership rates amongst younger demos” commented Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif. With a $195 price target on SPOT, she sees “substantial headroom exists for continued SPOT gross margin growth and equity value creation.”

The stock is also a ‘top internet pick’ for five-star MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson. He sees SPOT as a clear leader in music distribution, which is a space with ‘excellent’ fundamentals. With a $200 price target, Sanderson is forecasting 17% upside potential for the coming months. Overall, 16 analysts have published ‘Buy’ ratings on Spotify in the last three months vs 3 hold ratings and 1 sell rating. This ‘Strong Buy’ stock has an average analyst price target of $182.

InterActiveCorp/IAC (Nasdaq: IAC)

You might not have heard of holding company IAC, but you have almost certainly heard of its subsidiaries. Media giant IAC owns over 150 brands including Match Group, Angi Homeservices and Tinder. And with 100% Street support and sizable upside potential, IAC is a top stock to track right now.

Indeed, Top 50 analyst Jason Helfstein has just boosted his IAC price target from $175 to $200 (26% upside potential). He cites ‘higher estimates for all segments of (MTCH/ANGI/Stub)’ and particularly robust performance at video sharing site Vimeo.

“IAC operates what we consider an undervalued portfolio of Internet assets, focused on the Search, Online Dating, Local and Media verticals. The company has aggressively returned capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, and we expect this behavior to continue.” As a result, the Oppenheimer analyst concludes that “IAC [is] the most attractive vehicle to gain exposure to ANGI/MTCH.”

That’s not all…

Here we highlighted the three stocks on BAML’s list with the most bullish outlook from the Street. Other interesting stocks to consider include Bilibili Inc (Nasdaq: BILI), PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL), and Momo (Nasdaq: MOMO). Both Bili (a Chinese video game publisher) and PayPal are promising stocks, but with surging share prices the upside potential is currently very limited.

China’s Momo- often nicknamed the ‘Tinder of China’ is a free social search and instant messaging mobile app. The stock is buzzing right now following stellar Q1 results and upbeat Q2 guidance. Quarterly revenue exploded 64% year over year to $435.1 million, easily beating the $396.3 million consensus estimate. For Momo CEO Yan Tang this “great start” to 2018 demonstrated “outstanding” progress on last quarter’s strategy.

Disclaimer: TipRanks is an independent cloud based service that measures and ranks digitally published financial advice. TipRanks' natural language processing (NLP) algorithms aggregate and ...

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