Why Autodesk (ADSK) Should Be Your First Buy in March

On February 26, Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) reported Q4 earnings. The quarter was a beat — earnings per share (EPS) clocked in at $2.85, ahead of consensus estimates, which were pegged at $2.65, and revenue of $1.96 billion likewise beat estimates of $1.91 billion.

This did not go unnoticed — ADSK shares saw a nifty 5.32% bump since the report. But the thing that really jumped out at me was Wall Street’s reaction.

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A lot of the best analysts on the Street seem to have fallen in love with ADSK. Before I hit you with the revised coverage, bear in mind that we rank analysts on actual stock picking performance. 

After the report, RBC Capital’s Matthew Hedberg (top 5%) reiterated a Buy rating, with a $335 price target that implies a 36.25% upside. Blair Abernathy from Rosenblatt, ranked top 9%, doubled down on a Strong Buy rating, and maintained a target at $330 — that’s 34.22% upside.

It’s easier for me to just show you…

That second image shows only top analysts — but either way, this should be in the dictionary next to the word “consensus”. The average price target, when accounting for all 21 analysts who track the stock, implies a 37.7% upside. It has 14 Strong Buy ratings, 5 Buy ratings, and only 2 Hold ratings. No Sells or Strong Sells.

This report marks the 11th consecutive quarter in which ADSK has beaten earnings estimates. Now, the company is guiding above analysts' expectations for 2027.

All of what we’ve gone through up to now is encouraging — but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Do the fundamentals support the Street’s bullish views?

We built our own quant rating system a while ago. It takes 115 distinct factors, split across 7 categories, and then evaluates 4,600 stocks on a daily basis. All of that is distilled into a single metric — a Zen Rating.

ADSK currently has a Zen Rating of B — equivalent to a Buy rating. It ranks in the top 10% of all the stocks that we track when it comes to the fundamentals.

To get a better idea of what its specific strengths are, we need to look at those 7 categories — the Component Grade ratings. For instance, when it comes to our Value rating, which uses 22 metrics, Autodesk ranks in the top 22% of stocks.

With those analyst ratings in mind, it won’t come as a surprise to you that the stock is in the 90th percentile for Sentiment — equivalent to or better than 90% of stocks.  It ranks even better — in the 95th percentile, to be exact, for Financials — so we have a fortress balance sheet on our hands.

Lastly, ADSK ranks in the top 5% in terms of our Artificial Intelligence rating. This means that our in-house neural network, trained on more than two decades of market data, predicts a high likelihood of outperformance for the stock going forward.

The fundamentals are there, but timing is a potential issue in two ways. 

One, although that 8% bump is nice, the stock is still down 14% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis. The valuation is decent, but ADSK isn’t likely going to get any cheaper with a recovery seemingly underway. 

Two, price action for the last 3 years hasn’t exactly corresponded to those 11-straight quarters of earnings beats. You can see that from the D rating in the Momentum grade. It might take a while for this one to pan out, but if you’re comfortable with adding a long-term holding to your portfolio, this is definitely one to strongly consider.

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