3 Stocks With Real Upside Still Ahead Before October

What if Wall Street is racing, right now, this week, to raise price targets on a stock most investors have never even heard of?

Or that there's a stock out there so mispriced it could turn out to be one of the best risk to reward setups of the year?

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Here are 3 stocks that still have real upside ahead, not the leftovers everyone else piles into after the move has already happened. One of these names has analysts hiking their price targets almost every week right now, and even after everything it's already done, Wall Street thinks it can climb quite a bit higher from here. And one is being saved for last, if the case is right about it, this could be one of the more important stocks on a watchlist all year.

1. PBF Energy (PBF)

The first stock is PBF Energy (PBF), a refiner turning crude oil into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined products across its U.S. network.

Refiners aren't really driven by where oil prices sit, they're driven by the spread between what crude costs them and what they sell the refined product for, and that spread has been favorable lately, helped by very little new U.S. refining capacity coming online in recent years.

Revenue jumped nearly 50% from the prior quarter alone, and the stock trades at only around 6 times earnings, historically cheap for this group. Shares have already made a big move, up nearly 80% over the past 3 months and more than double over the past year, even with a bit of a pullback lately.

The analyst picture is mixed. (See the latest recommendations here.) Across the 9 analysts tracked, the overall stance lands at a Hold, and the average price target sits a bit below today's price. The analyst worth watching is Manav Gupta at UBS, top 6% of analysts tracked for stock picking performance, who has maintained his Strong Buy and sees ample upside ahead, though no specific price target percentage has been published.

That's exactly the gap the Zen Ratings quant model is built for. PBF earns an overall A rating, a Strong Buy recommendation, landing in the top 1% of all 4,442 stocks tracked, one of the very best overall Zen Ratings in the entire system.

Running through the Component Grades from weakest to strongest: Safety is softest at top 43%, Sentiment top 24%, Financials top 17%, AI top 7%, and Growth and Momentum both excellent, tied around top 3%. The true standout is Value, top 1% of every stock tracked, making this one of the cheapest names in the system, inside an Oil & Gas Refining industry that itself carries a strong A grade.

The full case: a genuinely undervalued refiner in a strong industry, with an elite Zen Ratings profile picking up on what thin, mixed Wall Street coverage hasn't priced in yet.

Now on to a stock that insiders are buying like crazy…

2. Astronics (ATRO)

Next up is Astronics (ATRO). You've probably never heard of Astronics, but you've almost certainly flown on a plane with their parts in it. They make the lighting, power outlets, and seat motion systems built into commercial aircraft cabins, plus avionics and radio test equipment for the defense side of the business.

In plain English, next time you plug your phone into a seatback power port on a flight, there's a decent chance Astronics made it.

For a while, this was a steady, unexciting supplier stock. That's changed. Air travel demand has been strong, aircraft production has been ramping, and Astronics has been converting that into real, measurable growth.

Over the trailing 12 months, revenue sits at just over $940 million, with earnings north of $79 million. And the most recent quarter alone brought in $35 million in earnings, up more than 35% from the prior quarter.

Return on equity here is a standout, north of 50%, more than 3 times the industry average.

Wall Street currently expects earnings to keep growing around 40% a year going forward. Revenue growth is expected to be more modest, in the low double digits, which tells you a good chunk of that upside is coming from margin expansion, not just top line growth.

And for what it's worth, insiders have been net buyers of the stock over the past year.

Shares have essentially doubled over the past year, even though they've pulled back a bit, down a bit more than 10%, over the last few months. On a PEG basis, the stock is trading at just over 1 times its expected growth rate.

Wall Street coverage here is thin, which tells you this is still a relatively undiscovered name, right now there's just 1 analyst issuing a 12 month price target. That's Gautam Khanna at TD Cowen, who ranks in the top 11% of analysts tracked based on real stock picking performance. He rates the stock a Strong Buy, and his price target suggests the stock could see around 30% additional upside from here.

Astronics earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation. And historically, stocks with a Strong Buy Zen Rating have gone on to average close to 30% a year.

Digging into the 7 Component Grades, starting with the weaker ones: the Artificial Intelligence grade is actually the softest spot here, closer to average than it might first appear, around the top 44%. Value comes in at top 35%, which lines up with that PEG ratio just over 1 and makes sense given how far this stock has already run. Safety is top 19%, which is fairly typical for an industrial supplier tied to aircraft production cycles. Momentum is top 16%, and Sentiment is top 15%. Financials are strong at top 6%. And the standout, by a wide margin, is Growth, top 1% of every stock in the system.

So here's the full picture: strong profitability, an elite Growth grade, and a single analyst who's clearly bullish, even though very few on Wall Street are covering this name yet. The tradeoff is you're not getting it dirt cheap after the run it's already had, and thin coverage means this one deserves a bit more of your own homework. But when the fundamentals are this real, paying up a bit for it is a comfortable trade.

Before the next pick, one quick thing. If you want to stay one step ahead of the market, join the Live training every Monday. That is when we share the updated market outlook and trading plan to outperform, plus the Trade of the Week based on our proven Zen Ratings quant model.

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3. Corcept Therapeutics (CORT)

This is the one saved for last. The third and final pick is Corcept Therapeutics (CORT), the stock hinted at earlier, the one with Wall Street racing to raise price targets right now.

Corcept is a biopharmaceutical company built around a single hormone, cortisol. Their lead drug, Korlym, treats Cushing's syndrome, a condition caused by the body producing too much cortisol. And in 2026, they got a second drug approved, Lifyorli, for a type of ovarian cancer that's resistant to standard chemotherapy.

This isn't a story about a company hoping for an approval someday. Lifyorli is already approved and already being prescribed, and the uptake has been fast.

Shares have already had a big run because of it, up around two thirds over just the past 3 months, and up by a similar margin over the full year.

And looking ahead, Wall Street isn't done. Analysts currently expect earnings here to compound at well over 100% a year going forward, with revenue growth in the high 30% range. On a PEG basis, which weighs the stock price against that growth, shares are trading at just north of 1.5, which is a reasonable price to pay for growth this fast.

Wall Street's price targets tell an interesting story too. The most recent, most bullish calls all came in right after the last earnings report. David Amsellem at Piper Sandler, who ranks in the top 4% of analysts tracked, reiterated a Strong Buy with a target that implies upside of around 45%. Edward Nash at Canaccord Genuity, also top 4%, maintained his Strong Buy with a target implying upside of around 40%. And Swayampakula Ramakanth at HC Wainwright, who ranks in the top 2% of analysts tracked, maintained a Buy with a target also implying around 40% upside.

Not everyone's on board, Kalpit Patel at Wolfe Research downgraded the stock to Sell, with a target that would cut the stock roughly in half from here. And UBS's Ashwani Verma, top 11% of analysts tracked, actually upgraded this to a Strong Buy back in May, but the stock has already climbed well past the target he set at the time, which tells you how fast this story has been moving.

Add it all up, and the overall Wall Street consensus recommendation here is a Buy.

Now for the Zen Ratings breakdown. Corcept earns an A rating, a Strong Buy recommendation, and that Zen Rating actually agrees with where Wall Street landed, even with that one dissenting voice. This is also a case of one company standing out inside a rough industry, Biotech as a whole carries a weak F grade, but Corcept rises well above the pack.

Working through the 7 Component Grades from weakest to strongest: Safety is the soft spot, at top 57%, which is pretty standard for a smaller biopharma name where a single FDA decision can move the stock hard in either direction. The Artificial Intelligence grade is also on the softer side, around the top 52%. Value is top 19%, and Financials sit at top 17%. Sentiment and Momentum are both strong, essentially tied around the top 6%. And the standout, Growth, comes in at top 4% of every stock in the system.

So put it together: an already approved second drug still ramping, growth estimates that are about as aggressive as you'll find anywhere, and a majority of Wall Street's most recent, top ranked calls still pointing higher, even after the run this stock has already had. The volatility cuts both ways here, so this one is better suited to investors who can stomach bigger swings. But the underlying business is clearly moving in the right direction.

Conclusion

So there's the list, 3 stocks with real upside still ahead. For anyone looking to put new money to work before the calendar turns to October, all 3 of these deserve a spot on the watchlist.

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