Navient Dethrones HP Enterprise On S&P 500 Top Stock List

By Steve Hach of ValuEngine

Thursday, December 29, 2016 4:04 PM EST

We can use our data to track individual stocks, industries, sectors, and indices. For today's bulletin, we present key metrics for the top picks in the S&P 500. The companies listed below represent the top-ten BUY/STRONG BUY stocks within the index. They are presented below according to their one-month forecast target prices.

This week, we saw a 60% turnover for our list since the last time we looked at the SP500 at the beginning of December. We also have a new leader, Navient Corp., which swapped positions with--and dethroned-- Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

Besides Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Navient, we also see Applied Materials and Time Warner once again this month. Those two stocks declined a few positions each and Time Warner just managed to stay in the top-ten this time around.

Other newcomers include Lincoln National, UNUM Group, Ryder, United Rentals, Discover, and Hewlett Packard Inc.

While we have a tech-heavy list yet again, we also see that Consumer Discretionary and Finance firms are well-represented on our last Index top-ten list of 2016. In addition, the first three firms are ranked STRONG BUY-- along with Applied Materials. The remaining components on this list are BUY-rated.