Our Top 5 Stocks to Set It and Forget It Before 2027

Most investors think "set it and forget it" means buying the same big, boring names everyone already owns. Coke. Procter & Gamble. Johnson & Johnson.

But here is the problem, a great company is not always a great stock to buy right now. Some of those classic "forever stocks" are expensive, growing slowly, or simply middle-of-the-pack compared with what else is available.

A note from our sponsors...

So we screened the market for something better.

Today we have 5 stocks built to buy, hold, and more or less forget about heading into 2027, companies with strong balance sheets, dependable earnings, attractive growth, and prices that still leave room for upside.

One has beaten earnings estimates for nearly 5 years straight. Another is a blue chip trading at a bargain valuation. And our final pick is growing earnings at nearly 64% a year while quietly generating the kind of recurring revenue that can compound for years.

These are not necessarily the stocks everyone else owns. They may be the ones you'll wish you owned sooner.

Haemonetics (HAE)

We will start with Haemonetics (HAE). This stock is about as boring as it gets on the surface, and about as beautiful as it gets underneath.

Haemonetics is the quiet backbone of the blood and plasma business, they make the machines and software hospitals and donation centers rely on. Unglamorous, essential, recurring, and it does not stop when the economy wobbles.

The reason it's on a set-it-and-forget-it list: plasma demand keeps rising, and Haemonetics sells the gear every new donation center needs.

This explains why Wall Street experts see earnings climbing almost 46% a year going forward, roughly 1.6 times the pace of their medical peers. Growth is nice. But growth at a fair price is much, much nicer.

And these shares carry a PEG ratio right around 1.1. That makes Haemonetics a GARP stock, Growth At A Reasonable Price. Remember, the average stock trades higher, at a PEG of around 1.5.

Haemonetics has now beaten Wall Street's earnings estimates 19 quarters in a row, nearly 5 years without a single miss. That's a degree of consistency you rarely see.

Wall Street is onboard. Of the 8 analysts covering shares, 7 rate it a Buy or Strong Buy recommendation, landing on a consensus Strong Buy recommendation, and the most recent move was an upgrade. (See all recommendations here.)

Now let's see what our Zen Ratings quant model has to say. It scores every stock across 115 fundamental, technical, and AI factors and boils it down to one letter grade, A through F, plus 7 Component Grades that flag each stock's strengths and weaknesses.

Haemonetics earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 2% of the roughly 4,600 stocks we track, ahead of 98% of the market. And the Component Grades lean decisively toward quality. From strong to strongest: Sentiment lands in the top 28%, Value the top 22%, Financial strength the top 17%, Momentum the top 13%, and Growth the top 8%. And the standout, Safety, the top 7%, the consistency and predictability of earnings and cash flow. For a buy-and-forget stock, that is the grade that matters most.

All in all, a durable compounder, strong when it comes to the fundamentals, with a proven track record and a level of stability that lets you sleep at night.

Our next pick takes the durability idea somewhere different, a household name you have absolutely heard of, trading like it is on the clearance rack…

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)

Our second stock is one you absolutely know, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY). A pharmaceutical giant, trading like it is on the clearance rack.

Let's talk about the setup. The market has spent two years fixated on Bristol's patent cliff. Fair concern. But while everyone stared at what is rolling off, they stopped watching what is coming on, a growth portfolio with more than 10 new medicines and over 30 launches planned by 2030. All that worry has left one of the steadiest drug makers on the planet trading dirt cheap.

These shares change hands for a paltry forward price-to-earnings ratio around 9. For a company this size and this stable, that is remarkably cheap.

Bristol has also quietly beaten Wall Street's earnings estimates 12 quarters in a row. The market keeps underestimating it, the results keep saying otherwise.

On the analyst side, Wall Street is split, just what you would expect on a name everyone has written off. But the most bullish voice is worth hearing. As of this writing, the top-target analyst, David Amsellem at Piper Sandler, ranks in the top 4% of all Wall Street analysts, and he sees shares climbing about 40% from here.

Here's something worth flagging: since this breakdown was put together, Bristol's standing has eased a bit. It still earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, but now in the top 4% of all stocks we track, rather than the top 1% it showed before. Still elite, just no longer the A-plus tier. Momentum lands in the top 13%, Safety and AI both in the top 9%, and Financial strength is better still at the top 6%. And the standout, Value, sits in the top 1%, based on 21 different value measures, about as cheap as a blue chip gets.

The soft spots are worth naming. Growth is one, because of that patent cliff on its older blockbusters. But the weakest grade of all is Sentiment, down in the bottom 38% of the market, meaning the Smart Money crowd has not come back to the name yet. That is exactly why shares are this cheap, and with more than 10 new medicines on the way, the risk is already in the price.

Cheap, stable, and paying you to be patient, that is the definition of a set-it-and-forget-it blue chip.

From the largest names on Wall Street, our next pick flips the script, a tiny company most of the Street has not even bothered to cover, where the Smart Money is quietly piling in.

Myers Industries (MYE)

Our third pick is all about the Smart Money, Myers Industries (MYE). A small Ohio company that makes the unglamorous stuff that keeps commerce moving, reusable containers, pallets, and bins for dealers, retailers, and manufacturers. Now, it might sound boring, but it's also incredibly profitable and sticky.

Here is the why-now. Myers has been expanding margins and folding in acquisitions, translating into real earnings power.

Earnings are forecast to grow roughly 44% a year going forward, more than twice the pace of its packaging peers.

And it has backed that up by beating estimates 4 quarters in a row.

Even better, you are not paying up for it. Myers carries a PEG ratio around 0.8, meaning shares could rise meaningfully from here and still be cheaper than the average stock at 1.5.

As far as analyst coverage goes, there's not a lot of it. Just 1 analyst covers MYE shares. But that one ranks in the top 3% of all Wall Street analysts, with a Strong Buy recommendation and a target well above today's price. In a stock this under-covered, every new analyst who shows up is its own catalyst.

Here's another one worth flagging: since this was drafted, Myers' Zen Rating has cooled from an A to a B. It now earns a Buy recommendation, in the top 12% of all stocks we track. Still strong, but not the top 1% originally scripted. Let's walk through the Components. Momentum lands in the top 10%, Safety the top 8%. The standout is Sentiment, the top 3% of the market, the Smart Money crowd moving in, with the AI grade right alongside it at the top 2%, and that one measures the likely future timeliness of shares, not how much AI the company sells. The soft spots are Financial strength, in the top 28%, and Value, which grades much weaker than first stated, in the bottom 20% of the market on our Zen measures, even though the PEG ratio above looks attractive.

The one thing to keep honest is the balance sheet. Myers carries a bit more debt than a pristine blue chip, from the deals that built it. But it just refinanced out to 2031, and throws off plenty of cash to cover it.

So here is the sum of it, a well-run little company, beating estimates, with the Smart Money moving in early. That is a lot to like in a name Wall Street has barely glanced at.

Our next pick is another quiet workhorse, but this one is wired into one of the biggest spending waves of the decade.

Littelfuse (LFUS)

Pick number four is a picks-and-shovels play on electrification, Littelfuse (LFUS). If electricity flows through it, Littelfuse probably protects it. They make the circuit protection and sensing components inside electric vehicles, data centers, factories, and the power grid.

As the world electrifies, the amount of Littelfuse content inside every car, data center, and factory keeps climbing, and we can already see that in the results.

Littelfuse has beaten Wall Street's earnings estimates 6 quarters in a row, and on its last report it hiked its own guidance for the quarter ahead well past what analysts expected. When a company raises the bar on itself, pay attention.

Coverage is on the thinner side, with just 3 analysts, but all 3 land on a Buy recommendation. The most accurate of them, David Williams at Needham, ranks in the top 1% of the entire Street, and he sees solid upside with a fair value target north of $500 as of this writing.

Now for the Zen Ratings. Littelfuse earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 3% of all stocks we track. Time to pop the hood and look at the Components. Safety in the top 23%, Growth the top 14%, Momentum the top 13% for timely shares, and Sentiment up in the top 9% with the Smart Money onboard. Finally, you've got the standout, Financial strength, in the top 8%, operational excellence that keeps showing up, quarter after quarter, in future earnings.

The biggest negative here is cyclicality. Its chips and sensors ride the ups and downs of autos, industrials, and semiconductors, so a slowdown there can cool things off. The flip side? Every one of those markets is on a multi-year electrification climb, and Littelfuse is wired into all of them.

That is the whole case, a boring, essential, financially rock-solid business compounding right alongside the electric future.

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. And even if you can't join live, it's still worth signing up, since a replay goes out to all registrants to watch whenever is convenient.

Digi International (DGII)

For our final stock, here is something our model does not say very often. This company earns one of the highest AI scores in our entire system, on a business you could almost literally set and forget.

Let us introduce Digi International (DGII). Digi is a global leader in the Internet of Things, the hardware and connectivity that lets machines talk to each other, from cold-storage trucks to hospital monitors to the factory floor. And here is the beautiful part, sticky, recurring revenue that keeps flowing long after the sale.

As every industry wires up its machines, Digi's subscription-style revenue keeps compounding. This explains why Wall Street experts forecast earnings growing almost 64% a year going forward, more than 2 times the pace of its communication-equipment peers.

And this is a company that delivers, with 18 straight quarters of beating Wall Street's estimates. That is four and a half years without a miss.

And despite that growth, you are not overpaying the way the headline price-to-earnings number might suggest. Digi's PEG ratio sits right around 1.0, another GARP stock, Growth At A Reasonable Price, when the average company trades half-again higher at 1.5.

On the analyst front, Digi is still flying under Wall Street's radar, just 3 analysts cover shares. But 2 of the 3 rate it a Strong Buy recommendation, and the most accurate, an analyst at Stephens who ranks in the top 7% of the Street, has a target above today's price.

Digi earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 2% of the roughly 4,600 stocks we track, one of the highest-rated names our system follows. Let's walk through the Components. Sentiment lands in the top 23%, Financial strength in the top 19%, and Momentum in the top 17%. Then we have Growth in the top 10%, and Safety in the top 7%. And the standout, fittingly for our final pick, Artificial Intelligence, the top 3% of the entire market. That grade is not about how much AI the company sells, it's our machine-learning engine, trained on two decades of market data, flagging the subtle patterns that tend to precede a stock's outperformance, and Digi scores better than 97% of the market on that signal.

The one risk here is that Digi is a smaller company in a competitive IoT space, so in a rough market a name this size can swing harder than a blue chip. But with recurring revenue, a top 2% rating, and 18 straight beats, this is a business built to keep running while you look the other way.

Cheap on a growth-adjusted basis, graded near the very top, and throwing off sticky recurring revenue, that is why Digi was the perfect stock to set, forget, and finish with today. Consider whether it deserves a place in your portfolio.

So there you have it, 5 stocks built to buy, hold, and forget as we head into 2027. A blood-and-plasma compounder in Haemonetics. A blue chip on the clearance rack in Bristol-Myers Squibb. A Smart Money small-cap in Myers Industries. The electrification backbone in Littelfuse. And a recurring-revenue machine with one of the highest AI grades in our system in Digi International.

Remember, the Zen Ratings update daily. Pull a free rating on over 4,600 stocks just by typing in a ticker at wallstreetzen.com, and bookmark the site before your next buy, hold, or sell decision.

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.