TipRanks: These are the 5 favorite stocks of the top financial analysts

Published Wed, May 3 20173:26 PM EDT

Harriet Lefton of TipRanks

TipRanks , a service that ranks Wall Street, identified the best analysts covering the financial industry and found which stocks they like right now. We use a natural language processing algorithm to rank analysts based on two factors: Average return of buy-sell recommendations Success rate of buy-sell recommendations We combined the screener's insights with a database scan for the most popular financial stocks by top analysts in the last month. Here are five favorite stocks from the best-performing financial analysts: 1. Visa (V) — This global payments company is a clear favorite with best-performing analysts. In the last three months six top analysts have published buy ratings on the stock. The average 12-month price target of these analysts is $103, representing 11 percent upside from Tuesday's close. Nomura's Bill Carcache reiterated his buy rating on the stock on April 21 with a $105 price target. Carcache raised his 2017 and 2018 earnings per share estimates to $3.40 (from $3.30) / $3.88 (from $3.80) respectively "to reflect the quarter's beat (partly offset by higher incentives in 2H17) and the outlook for lower taxes." He concluded that "this quarter's results showcase the strength of V's business model." Visa reported fiscal second-quarter earnings per share of 86 cents versus the 79 cents Street estimate on revenue of $4.48 billion versus the $4.29 billion Street estimate. 2. PayPal (PYPL) — This online payments company has received 12 buy ratings and 1 hold rating from top analysts in the last three months. The average analyst price target for PayPal is $51, representing 4 percent upside from Tuesday's close. TipRanks five-star Oppenheimer analyst Glenn Greene reiterated his buy rating on April 27 while raising his price target from $45 to $50. The analyst praised PayPal's attractive business model and tight operating expense management. He sees the stock as "particularly well positioned to benefit as retail activity continues to migrate from brick-and-mortar stores toward online and mobile venues." 3. Blackstone Group (BX) — This alternative asset manager has a strong buy rating from many of the top-performing analysts. Chris Kotowski from Oppenheimer, who is ranked 108 out of 4,569 tracked analysts, says: "Thanks to choppy markets in the first half, 2016 wasn't a robust realization year. But for a platform that has funds with ten-year lifespans, any given one quarter or year isn't really all that important. Strong performance will generate carry; it's just a matter of time." The analyst reiterated his buy rating on BX on April 20 and raised his 12-month price target from $33 to $34, representing 11 percent upside from Tuesday's close. 4. Charles Schwab (SCHW) — This bank and brokerage firm has only buy ratings from top-performing analysts with an average analyst price target of $47, representing 17 percent upside from Tuesday's close. Jefferies analyst Daniel Fannon reiterated his buy rating on the stock with a $48 price target on April 24. 5. Citigroup (C) — This global bank has an average analyst price target of $69, representing 16 percent upside from Tuesday's close. Oppenheimer's Kotowski published a $77 price target on the stock on April 13. The analyst said: "Our $77 price target assumes a 70% relative P/E, at the low end of our 70-80% range for the industry. As [Citi] Holdings winds down, we think earnings should grow above industry averages and that the proper relative valuation target will move to the middle or upper end of the range." The bank reported strong first-quarter results of $1.35 earnings per share and revenue of $18.1 billion, which beat the $1.24 and $17.7 billion Wall Street consensus. Editor's note: TipRanks is a fintech company that ranks analysts and financial bloggers based on their picks' performance. This piece highlights analysts with great track records who are not necessarily from the biggest firms.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

TipRanks, a service that ranks Wall Street, identified the best analysts covering the financial industry and found which stocks they like right now.

We use a natural language processing algorithm to rank analysts based on two factors: