Wall Street analysts are typically bullish on the names they cover, but when it comes to five stocks in particular, some are looking for truly incredible upside.
These are the five stocks in the S&P 500 with median analyst target prices that imply gains of 53 percent or more.
Importantly, these stocks all share another salient quality: Each has already slid mightily this year. For that reason, the high price targets may be more indicative of analysts' slowness or reticence to reduce their target prices, rather than of carefully thought out projections of incredible gains.
Still, "Crossing Wall Street" blog editor Eddy Elfenbein says that among the stocks, Signet Jewelers could indeed rise powerfully in the second half of the year.
"[Signet Jewelers'] problems are fixable. They can be addressed if management does a good job on them," he said Wednesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "So I think with a trader looking to take a very speculative position in Signet, I think for the next 12 months, there is an opportunity there."
Not everyone is excited about these Wall Street analyst picks. Craig Johnson, managing director at Piper Jaffray, disagrees with the list and singles out Delta in particular as the worst bet of the five.
Looking at a chart of Delta, Johnson points out that the airline appears to have plateaued.
"The chart is starting to look a bit distributional, it's kind of rolling over a little bit here and you're off a 20 change in percent from the highs," he said. "The stock's officially in a bear market off from its highs, and it looks like there's going to be more downside yet to come."
"These are all very good companies, it just might not be the time to be buying the individual stocks," Johnson added.
