TipRanks: 5 favorite tech stocks from the Street's top analysts

Published Tue, May 16 201711:27 AM EDT

Harriet Lefton of TipRanks

TipRanks , a service which ranks Wall Street analysts, identified the top technology analysts 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. TipRanks' stock screener allows you to screen for "best analyst consensus" stocks in the technology sector, revealing stocks with a "strong buy" best analyst consensus rating. We combined the screener's insights with a database scan to find the most popular technology stocks by top analysts in the last month. Here are five favorite stocks from the best-performing technology analysts. 1. Facebook ( FB ) — The social media giant has one of the most bullish analyst ratings out of all the stocks covered by TipRanks. In the last three months, 28 out of 29 top analysts have published buy ratings on the stock. The 12-month average price target from only the best-performing analysts is an impressive 15 percent above the $150.19 share price from Monday's close. After very robust first-quarter results, five-star RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney reiterated his buy rating on the stock on May 4 and raised his price target $10 to $185. "Core FB is growing extremely well," Mahaney wrote. He concludes that FB's current low market share of global online advertising of about 15 percent and global total advertising of approximately 5 percent will "help it maintain premium growth for a long time." 2. Salesforce.com ( CRM ) — This cloud computing company has a "strong buy" analyst consensus rating on TipRanks. Nineteen out of 20 ratings published on the stock over the last three months are buy ratings, and top analysts are predicting average upside potential of 9 percent for CRM over the next 12 months. "We consider CRM one of the healthiest long-term growth stories in our SaaS/applications software universe," Oppenheimer's Brian Schwartz wrote. He is very positive on the stock's outlook as "CRM is a proven market share taker that possesses disruptive products and a powerful corporate culture, and is led by a visionary CEO." The five-star analyst reiterated his buy rating on the stock on May 12 with a $95 price target, representing 6 percent upside from Monday's close. 3. Micron ( MU ) — This semiconductor stock is a top analyst favorite. With a "strong buy" analyst consensus, Micron has a notably high average price target of $37, representing 28 percent upside from Monday's close. The market reacted favorably to the appointment of new CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, co-founder and former CEO of SanDisk, on May 8. Five-star Cowen and Co. analyst Timothy Arcuri hopes Mehrotra will bring a more aggressive "Silicon Valley" management style to a company "that has always been somewhat insular," while Susquehanna analyst Mehdi Hosseini says Micron should benefit from Mehrotra's considerable experience in the NAND flash memory market. Arcuri and Hosseini reiterated their buy ratings on the stock on May 8 and May 12, respectively, with price targets of $34 and $35. 4. Microchip ( MCHP ) — Semiconductor manufacturing company Microchip has just posted a significant beat-and-raise for its fiscal fourth quarter. It was its sixth straight quarter of accelerating earnings-per-share growth. With a "strong buy" analyst consensus rating, 6 out of 7 top analysts have published buy ratings on the stock in the last three months. The average analyst price target is $93, representing 16 percent upside from Monday's close. "We believe MCHP has significant leverage in its model, has multiple gross margin expansion drivers, and continues to prove it's one of the best integrators in the business," Needham analyst Rajvindra Gill wrote. He reiterated his buy rating on the stock on May 10 with a bullish $100 price target. 5. Cognizant ( CTSH ) — In the last three months, top analysts have only published buy ratings on professional digital services company Cognizant. The stock has an average top analyst price target of $69, representing 7 percent upside from Monday's close. Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Joseph Foresi says he values the stock above its peer group as revenues are growing above the rest of the industry. "Cognizant is the type of stock investors want to own as revenue growth, margin expansion, and capital allocation drive multiple expansion," Foresi wrote after the company posted first-quarter revenue of $3.55 billion on May 5, up 10.7 percent year on year. The four-star analyst reiterated his buy rating on CTSH on May 8 and raised his price target to $73 from $67. 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.

Kai Pfaffenbach | Reuters

Average return of buy-sell recommendations
Success rate of buy-sell recommendations.

TipRanks' stock screener allows you to screen for "best analyst consensus" stocks in the technology sector, revealing stocks with a "strong buy" best analyst consensus rating. We combined the screener's insights with a database scan to find the most popular technology stocks by top analysts in the last month.

Here are five favorite stocks from the best-performing technology analysts.