By Senad Karaahmetovic
Bank of America strategist Anthony Cassamassino listed 10 high-conviction stocks for the third quarter that started today.
The list consists of 9 long and 1 short idea and includes “some of our fundamental equity analysts’ highest conviction ideas for the 3rd quarter.”
The list also reflects BofA’s near-term strategy for U.S. equities with its Chief Investment Strategist, Michael Hartnett, expecting strong bear market rallies in the near term that should result in a new market low for this cycle.
Nine long ideas include EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM), Exelon (NASDAQ:EXC), Kroger (NYSE:KR), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Progressive (NYSE:PGR), Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), Thermo Fisher (NYSE:TMO), and T-Mobile US (NASDAQ:TMUS).
Analyst Justin Post wrote this on Meta Platforms:
“Meta remains one of our top picks in Online media sector as the company has higher relative revenue stability compared to peers given breadth of advertisers, healthy margins that will minimize cash flow concerns, and significant cash on balance sheets to take advantage of stock dislocations with buybacks. In the near-term, we also see potential for accelerating growth and improving sentiment on easier comps, lapping IDFA impact, increasing Reels monetization, new on-platform eCommerce features, and optimism on AI/ML investments to improve ad targeting on the platform.”
On the other hand, Bank of America analysts are calling for further losses in AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) shares, which are rated as Underperform.