GET IN EARLY! Top 4 Stocks Before Trump's Next Tariffs

Tariffs get talked about like they're only bad news. And sure, if you're importing goods from overseas, the next round is going to sting.

But the fact of the matter is, every tariff also creates winners. When foreign competition gets hit with a tax, the American company making the same thing at home suddenly looks a whole lot more attractive. We've already seen 50% tariffs land on imported steel and aluminum, and with President Trump lining up the next round, it pays to get ahead of it.

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So here are four stocks worth owning before those tariffs hit: one in steel, one in aluminum, one quietly building the hardware behind the AI boom right here in America, and one that might just be the strongest name on the entire list. Let's get into it.

Nucor (NUE)

We'll start with the most direct tariff play there is, American steel. And the name to watch is Nucor (NUE), the largest steelmaker in the United States.

Why Nucor, and why right now? Steel is the textbook tariff winner. Those 50% Section 232 tariffs make imported steel far more expensive, and that hands pricing power straight to the domestic producers like Nucor.

And you can already see it in the numbers. Nucor just guided its third-quarter earnings to more than double what it earned a year ago. That's the tariff tailwind showing up in real time, and Nucor has beaten Wall Street's estimate two quarters running.

But you should know … This stock has had a big year, up around 80% as of writing. It pushed all the way up to a fresh high, then cooled off. Today it trades about 10% below that 52-week high, partly because the third-quarter guidance landed a touch under what the Street wanted. That gap is the opening. You're picking up the tariff winner closer to a discount than to its peak.

So what does Wall Street see from here? The analysts land on a consensus Strong Buy recommendation. One of them, over at BMO Capital, ranked in the top 10% of all analysts we track for pure stock-picking, has a Buy recommendation with a price target that implies more than 20% upside from where shares sit as of this writing. The Street-high price target implies upside of about 27%.

Nucor earns a B rating from our Zen Ratings, a Buy recommendation, ranking just below the top 5% threshold of A-rated stocks.

That overall score comes from 115 different factors, boiled down into both an individual grade and seven underlying Component Grades. 

Let’s look at the Components for NUE. For Value, Nucor sits in the top 24%. Growth, top 17%. Safety, top 17%. Financial strength, top 11%. And the standout, price Momentum, top 10%. That top-10% Momentum tells you the money is already moving into this name.

Ok, so steel is the obvious tariff winner. But there's a second metal where the tariffs are hitting just as hard, and the company sitting at the very top of that industry is putting up numbers that frankly stand out.

Kaiser Aluminum (KALU)

That company is Kaiser Aluminum (KALU). If steel is the poster child for tariffs, aluminum is right there beside it. Kaiser makes specialty aluminum products right here in the United States, for aerospace, packaging, and the auto industry.

Those same Section 232 tariffs mentioned above also put a 50% tax on a lot of imported aluminum. So when foreign metal gets taxed, Kaiser's order book gets more attractive.

And it's showing up. Last quarter, Kaiser blew past estimates, posting earnings more than double what analysts were looking for.

So what is Wall Street saying? Coverage here is still thin, only a handful of analysts have picked it up so far, and together they land on a consensus Buy recommendation. But here's the part that matters. The highest price target on the Street right now implies better than 20% upside from where shares trade as of this writing. So even the cautious view has room to run, and coverage this thin means that if more analysts show up, that alone can move a stock.

Overall, Kaiser earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, and the fundamentals put it in the top 2% of every stock we track. Growth comes in at the top 11%. And the standout, Sentiment, top 4%, the smart-money gauge that tracks what analysts, insiders, and the big institutions are actually doing, means the folks with the most information are leaning in hard. Underneath that, Value, Financial strength, Momentum, and Safety all come in above average, in the top 40% or better. Solid right across the board.

The Zen Ratings update every day, so you can pull the latest grade on Kaiser, or any of these, free at wallstreetzen.com.

Now, the one knock. Aluminum is a cyclical business, demand rises and falls with the economy, and Kaiser's earnings will move with it. That's the trade-off. But with those Section 232 tariffs walling off foreign metal, the domestic demand behind Kaiser isn't going anywhere soon.

The next name is quietly building the physical hardware behind the entire AI boom, and right now, only a single Wall Street analyst is covering it.

Benchmark Electronics (BHE)

This one is Benchmark Electronics (BHE). Here's what it does in plain English: Benchmark is a contract manufacturer. Big American companies hand it a design, and Benchmark builds the actual electronic hardware for aerospace and defense, for medical devices, for semiconductors, and increasingly, for AI.

So why Benchmark, and why now? The AI buildout is pouring money into physical infrastructure faster than almost anyone expected, and a lot of that hardware is being built in American factories instead of overseas. Benchmark sits right in that lane, it already builds HPE's liquid-cooled AI server blades here in the U.S.

That momentum is showing up in the forecast: Wall Street sees Benchmark's earnings growing more than 100% a year going forward, faster than its industry.

Now for the elephant in the room. Shares are up around 90% on the 1-year chart, but there's still room to run. There has been a dip, down more than 17% on the 3-month chart.

The real reason it's here is the PEG ratio, the price-to-earnings ratio divided by the growth rate, a quick way to see if you're paying a fair price for the growth you're getting. The average stock's PEG ratio is around 1.5. Anything under 1 is considered cheap. Benchmark's PEG ratio is 0.63x, so you're buying that triple-digit forecast at a serious discount.

On top of that, they've been an incredibly consistent performer, beating estimates in the last 13 consecutive quarters.

Here's the quirky part. For a company this interesting, Wall Street has barely shown up, only one analyst currently covers it. But that one analyst is ranked in the top 1% of everybody tracked for stock-picking accuracy, and he has a Buy recommendation on the stock. When the single sharpest voice in the room is the one paying attention, that's worth listening to.

Our system is a lot more enthusiastic than Wall Street. Benchmark earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 4% of all stocks. Financial strength, top 17%. Momentum, top 11%. Sentiment, top 10%. Growth, top 6%. And the standout, Safety, top 4%. Quick word on Safety, because people misread it, in our system it doesn't mean low debt, it measures how steady and predictable the earnings and cash flow are. Top 4% there tells you this is a dependable operator, not a boom-and-bust story.

Where to be straight: Benchmark runs on thin margins. That's just the nature of contract manufacturing, and it means execution has to stay sharp. But the AI-server work is higher-value business than its old bread-and-butter, and that's the kind of mix shift that lifts margins over time.

So Benchmark is the pick-and-shovel play on American-made AI. But the best-rated name on this entire list is saved for last. It's fallen sharply over the past few months, which, once you see the ratings behind it, might be the most interesting setup of the day.

By the way… If you want to stay one step ahead of the market, join our Live training every Monday, where we share an updated market outlook and trading plan to outperform, plus a Trade of the Week based on our proven Zen Ratings quant model. It's a free event, but you do need to register at wallstreetzen.com/live.

EnerSys (ENS)

Here's something you don't see very often. The single highest-rated stock on this entire list is also the one that's fallen the hardest lately, down more than 20% over the past three months. That stock is EnerSys (ENS).

EnerSys makes stored power, industrial batteries and energy systems. The backup power that keeps data centers and telecom networks running when the grid blinks. The batteries inside the forklifts moving goods through every warehouse in the country. And the power systems that soldiers and defense platforms run on out in the field.

So why now? Three forces are all pushing the same direction. First, electrification and the AI data-center boom, every one of those data centers needs backup power, and that's EnerSys's bread and butter. Second, defense, EnerSys powers soldier and battlefield systems, and defense budgets only seem to head one way. And third, the tariff and reshoring angle, EnerSys is building a brand-new lithium-ion battery factory here in the United States, backed by federal money, exactly the kind of domestic manufacturing this environment rewards.

And this isn't some flash in the pan, EnerSys has beaten Wall Street's number for 19 quarters in a row, almost 5 years of surpassing EPS estimates.

So who else sees it? Coverage is thin, only two analysts, but both are worth listening to. One is Gregory Lewis over at BTIG, ranked in the top 3% of every analyst we track. He has a Strong Buy recommendation, and as of this writing, his price target implies upside north of 50%. The second, from Oppenheimer, ranks in the top 7%, with a Buy recommendation and a target calling for just about 40% upside. Thin coverage, yes, but the two who showed up are both elite, and both are pounding the table.

And our system? This is the one to build toward. EnerSys earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, and it lands in the top 1% of all 4,600 stocks we track. It's also the number 1 ranked name out of 41 stocks in its corner of the market. Safety, top 22%. Growth, top 16%. Sentiment, top 8%, the smart money is here too. And then the two standouts, side by side, Value, top 2%, and Financial strength, top 1%. Put simply, a genuinely cheap stock with a balance sheet built like a tank.

The one knock: the recent price Momentum has cooled off, and a stock that's dropped this much can always take a little longer to turn. But that's the trade-off for buying quality on sale. Stack top-tier analysts calling for roughly 40% to more than 50% upside and years of earnings beats on top of a top 1% rating, and this is the best-rated name on the whole list, sitting on the discount rack. That's exactly the kind of setup worth watching closely.

In Closing…

So there's the game plan for the next round of tariffs. Nucor, the American steel giant. Kaiser Aluminum, the domestic aluminum play. Benchmark Electronics, building American-made AI hardware. And EnerSys, the top-rated name of the bunch, on sale after a pullback.

Four different ways to end up on the winning side of a trade war instead of the losing one. Tariffs tend to move fast and without much warning, so if any of these fit what you're after, it pays to do your homework now rather than after the next headline drops.

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