Analysts' Top S&P 500 Stocks to Buy Now

TE Connectivity and Broadcom join the list of stocks scoring rare Strong Buy consensus ratings. Some of the other names might surprise you.

best stocks to buy
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Shopping for stocks when markets are trading at record levels might sound counterintuitive. After all, the idea is to buy low. But there are always select names set to outperform — and that's especially true when market leadership is comparatively narrow.

Although the Magnificent 7 stocks have done much of the bull market's heavy lifting, that hardly means these names are doomed to underperform from here. Indeed, as we'll see below, three of Wall Street's top 10 stocks to buy now hail from the Magnificent 7. Companies from the healthcare, energy and industrials sectors are ably represented too. 

Here's how we found the top S&P 500 stocks to buy now. It's well known that industry analysts are reluctant to slap Sell ratings on the names they cover. There are a bunch of reasons for this, some more defensible than others. What's less commonly understood is that Strong Buy recommendations, while not nearly as rare as Sell calls, are in somewhat short supply too. 

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If you run a screen of the S&P 500 using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, you'll see that analysts assign a consensus recommendation of Sell to a total of one stock. (That's not abnormal during raging bull markets.) 

At the other end of the ratings spectrum stands the Street's highest recommendation of Strong Buy. A total of 17 stocks made the cut there (down from 19 a month ago), as you can see in the chart below. 

But first a note on our methodology: S&P Global Market Intelligence surveys analysts' stock recommendations and scores them on a five-point scale, where 1.0 equals Strong Buy and 5.0 means Strong Sell. Any score of 2.5 or lower means that analysts, on average, rate the stock a Buy. The closer the score gets to 1.0, the stronger the Buy call.

In other words, lower scores are better than higher scores.

Have a look at the chart below to see the 17 stocks in the S&P 500 that score an elite Strong Buy recommendation from industry analysts. Investors who fear it's too late to buy Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) or Nvidia (NVDA) will be happy to see they easily made the list. 

Please note that TE Connectivity (TEL) and Broadcom (AVGO) joined the club of top-rated S&P 500 stocks this month, while Merck (MRK), Boston Scientific (BSX), S&P Global (SPGI) and Uber Technologies (UBER) fell off. 

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Analysts' top S&P 500 stocks to buy now
Company (ticker)Analysts' consensus recommendation scoreAnalysts' consensus recommendation
TE Connectivity (TEL)1.00Strong Buy
UnitedHealth Group (UNH)1.27Strong Buy
Nvidia (NVDA)1.29Strong Buy
Amazon.com (AMZN)1.37Strong Buy
Delta Air Lines (DAL)1.38Strong Buy
GE Aerospace (GE) 1.39Strong Buy
Microsoft (MSFT)1.32Strong Buy
Broadcom (AVGO)1.43Strong Buy
SLB (SLB)1.43Strong Buy
Mondelez International (MDLZ)1.44Strong Buy
Targa Resources (TRGP)1.46Strong Buy
United Airlines (UAL)1.46Strong Buy
Meta Platfoms (META)1.47Strong Buy
Micron Technologies (MU)1.47Strong Buy
ServiceNow (NOW)1.48Strong Buy
Howmet Aerospace (HWM)1.48Strong Buy
Elevance Health (ELV)1.50Strong Buy

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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.