September ended on a mixed note, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.5% and 4.3%, respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.9%. Markets remained on edge with higher oil prices and Treasury yields weighing on investor sentiment and triggering fears of additional interest rate hikes.
In this climate, investors with a long-term horizon can track recommendations from top Wall Street analysts to find stocks with solid growth prospects.
Here are three stocks favored by some of Wall Street's top pros, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance.
CoreWeave
Neocloud company CoreWeave (CRWV) is benefiting from robust AI-driven demand for cloud computing.
Recently, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee upgraded CoreWeave to buy from hold, raising his price target to $125 from $120. The analyst cited favorable pricing, driven by solid demand, for the upgrade.
Chatterjee said CoreWeave is now more willing to sign premium priced, shorter-term contracts, which lift his revenue and margin estimates. CRWV stock performance has been underwhelming as investors worry about high capital spending, the analyst noted. That said, he believes that higher prices and increased margins will more than offset the rise in debt to fund capital spending, improving the stock's valuation.
Chatterjee noted the 25% price hike in July across CoreWeave's product offerings and frequent price increases by rivals like Nebius (NBIS), adding that some peers are charging nearly three times more for short-term compute contracts than what CoreWeave charges on longer-term deals.
"CoreWeave's leverage of the opportunity [is] evident in its recent press release highlighting contracts signed in F3Q at ~$40M/MW," said Chatterjee. JPMorgan said higher pricing is already contributing 5-10 percentage points to contract margins versus earlier deals.
Chatterjee ranks No. 4 among more than 12,500 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been successful 75% of the time, delivering an average return of 55.3%. See CoreWeave Statistics on TipRanks.
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks (PANW) is a provider of cybersecurity solutions across network, cloud, security operations, AI and identity. Following a discussion with management, BTIG analyst Gray Powell reiterated a buy rating on PANW and raised his price target to $425 from $404.
After a review of Palo Alto's product-level growth catalysts, Powell sees clear upside to both revenue and next-generation security (NGS) annual recurring revenue (ARR) in fiscal 2027. He expects PANW to deliver pro forma revenue growth of more than 17%, above the consensus estimate of 14.6%, and NGS ARR growth of more than 26% versus the Street's expectation of 24.5%.
Over the past five years, the Palo Alto business mix, has moved to higher-growth product areas and new markets. from what was earlier viewed as a hardware-centric network security company, Powell said. The 5-star analyst estimates that hardware firewalls and attached subscriptions now account for less than 50% of revenue.
Meanwhile, high-growth solutions, including Prisma SASE, software firewalls, Cortex XSIAM, Chronosphere and Idira now represent more than 35% of PANW's revenue. "Investors may not fully realize the growth potential within PANW's platform story," Powell said.
BTIG is optimistic about the prospects of Chronosphere in observability, CyberArk in identity and software firewalls and Prisma AIRS in the network and AI security business.
Powell ranks No. 320 among more than 12,500 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 61% of the time, delivering an average return of 17.3%. See Palo Alto Networks KPIs on TipRanks.
Amazon
In a research note on September 30, Rosenblatt analyst Scott Devitt reiterated a buy rating on e-commerce and cloud computing platform Amazon (AMZN), raising his price target to $360 from $335. Fears that agentic commerce poses a major threat to Amazon's advertising business seem "overstated," he said.
Devitt noted that the growing adoption of personal agents and AI shopping assistants has sparked concern about displacement of Amazon's retail media business. But the 5-star analyst remains bullish, given Amazon's ability to adapt to changing consumer behavior, as it's done in the past.
Additionally, Devitt argues that even if an AI agent helps a shopper discover a product, Amazon can still handle the purchase and delivery, keeping much of the transaction value. He highlighted that management believes that existing Amazon shoppers will likely continue to start their shopping journey on the platform because it has better personalization, accurate pricing and inventory information that third-party agents still lack.
Overall, Devitt expects Amazon's retail business to prove a net beneficiary of agentic commerce. Fewer clicks would not hurt the company if the value of each remaining click and overall volumes keep rising, he said. The argument is that even if Amazon loses some sponsored ad revenue over the next few years, it would likely be only a small part of the company's total business and could be offset by growth in other areas.
"Consistent with our AI framework, we continue to view Amazon as one of the most resilient leaders in our coverage, combining owned compute infrastructure with a physical fulfillment moat," said Devitt. His bullish view is supported, Devitt said, by expectations that Amazon Web Services (AWS) will exit the year at a more than 45% growth rate with continued margin improvement.
