2 Large Caps To Buy In May

Last week, the S&P 500 had a mixed performance, but a recovery rally late Thursday and Friday helped the benchmark index post a 0.67% gain. Those gains were significantly tilted in favor of large and mega-cap stocks.

A rotation toward higher market-cap equities seems to be underway. That doesn’t necessarily lead to easy trades, however. The common issues: stretched valuation, crowded positioning, and limited upside, are still as relevant as ever.

The solution is relatively simple. Kill two birds with one stone — make use of the rotation into large caps, but identify names that don’t suffer from the issues we discussed. Simple in theory, at least. In reality, this can be a painstaking process.

However, there is a way through which you can narrow down the scope of your search and make timely entries. All you have to do is turn to …

Large Caps Stock Strategy

Our in-house quant rating system uses 115 fundamental metrics and factors to evaluate roughly 4,600 stocks on a daily basis. That big-picture overview is condensed into a simple, approachable metric — a stock’s Zen Rating.

Only the top 5% of stocks are given a Zen Rating of A, equivalent to a Strong Buy rating. However, 5% of 4,600 is still about 230 tickers to consider on any given day. But, there’s a way for you to narrow the search down even further — with the help of one of our exclusive Zen Strategies.

There are 11 of these strategies in total — each is a carefully-constructed portfolio, consisting of just 7 stocks. With recent goings-on in mind, today we’ll be taking a look at a Strategy that has an all-time annual return of 15.35%, and which has provided an 11.71% return in the past 30 days. I’m talking about our Large Caps Stock Strategy.

Las Vegas Sands (LVS)

Las Vegas Sands operates exclusive resorts in Asia; on top of that, they’re the largest developer of such resorts in the region. Right now, LVS ranks in the top 8% of the stocks that we track when looking at overall fundamentals.

The stock has a varied profile of fundamental strengths. It ranks in the top 19% for Financials, indicating a healthy balance sheet, and at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 16x, it also ranks in the top 18% for Value.

Sentiment is another high point. Here, LVS ranks in the 86th percentile — equivalent to or better than 86% of the stocks that we track. The stock is a consensus Buy on Wall Street, but the real story is in the price targets. The lowest 12-month price forecast on the Street implies an upside of more than 19%. The average price target implies an upside of almost 34%, while the Street-high forecast has an implied upside of more than 51%.

Lastly, Las Vegas Sands shares rank in the top 5% of equities when it comes to our Artificial Intelligence rating. This means that our in-house neural network, trained on more than two decades of market data, has singled it out as a likely outperformer.

The downsides here are low Momentum and Safety scores. The Growth rating is slightly above average — 70th percentile, so there’s some room for improvement there. However, those drawbacks are easily outshone by strong analyst consensus and the appealing valuation. The latest quarter report for LVS was published on April 24, and it marked the 5th consecutive quarter of beating EPS estimates. The stock dipped by 8.3% on the week heading into earnings, so a reversal into upward momentum could occur soon.

Halliburton (HAL)

Halliburton is one of the largest oilfield services companies in the world. Their operations span everything from finding oil and well construction to reservoir management. HAL currently ranks in the top 5% of the stocks that we track, giving it a Zen Rating of A, and it is currently the 3rd highest-rated stock in the Oil & Gas Equipment & Service industry, which has an Industry Rating of B.

HAL ranks in the top 18% of stocks when it comes to Sentiment. The overall analyst picture is mixed, but leans bullish. The stock has 9 Strong Buy ratings, 1 Buy rating, 5 Hold ratings, and 1 Strong Sell rating. The most up-to-date coverage is quite positive, however. Citigroup’s Scott Gruber,who ranks in the top 7% of Wall Street analysts in terms of actual stock picking performance, recently maintained a Strong Buy rating and raised his price target to $47 — now the Street-high forecast, which implies an upside of 16.4%.

Momentum is another area where Halliburton shares shine. In this category, the stock ranks in the 88th percentile. HAL has rallied by 90.29% over the past 365 days, and slightly more than 18% in the past 3 months. The bet here is that the upward momentum will last — the tradeoff is an average score for Value, where Halliburton ranks in the 60th percentile. To round everything off, we have high scores for Financials and Safety — top 13% and top 2%, respectively.

With recent reports suggesting that oil prices could remain elevated for longer than initially expected, HAL is set to enjoy a stronger growth runway than was usually anticipated. On top of that, recent geopolitical dynamics could easily serve to spur on more localized energy investment, which could prove to be another tailwind for Halliburton. 

Interested In More Great Stock Picks?

The 2 stocks highlighted above are just a fraction of what you get from our proven Large Caps Stock Strategy. 

That’s because each day our system recalibrates — and Zen Strategies members get access to the top 7 artificial intelligence stocks based on 115 different parameters that point to outperformance. 

See all Top 7 Large Caps stocks here >

However, maybe large-cap stocks aren’t what you’re looking to add to your portfolio right now. Perhaps you would like to see all 11 of our market beating strategies including Growth, Value, Momentum or perhaps even Income stocks. 

Each featuring the top 7 stocks.

Each featuring tremendous performance.

We spell it all out in this timely presentation below that lives up to its name:

77 Best Stocks Now! > 

What to Do Next?

• 77 Best Stocks NOW! >
• Options Trading with the Zen Ratings >
• 2 New Stocks to Buy from Steve Reitmeister >

Want to get in touch? Email us at news@wallstreetzen.com.