Tensions in the Middle East due to the U.S.-Iran war and elevated oil prices continued to impact the stock market this week. Investors with a long-term investment horizon should look beyond near-term challenges and capitalize on the ongoing volatility to pick stocks trading at attractive valuations.
Tracking top Wall Street analysts can help investors gain key insights, as these experts assign ratings after thoroughly analyzing a company’s fundamentals and the macro and micro factors impacting its performance.
Here are three stocks favored by some of Wall Street’s top pros, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance.
Amazon
We start this week with e-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon (AMZN). Recently, J.P.Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth reiterated a buy rating on AMZN stock and raised his price target to $280 from $265, saying it “remains a best idea.”
The 5-star analyst revised his estimates to reflect solid demand and capacity expansion in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud unit. In contrast, less favorable changes in forex, increased fuel prices, international growth initiatives, and incremental costs related to the accelerated launch of Amazon Leo adversely impacted the estimates.
Specifically, Anmuth now projects AWS growth of 29%, 30%, 29%, and 28% for Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 2026, respectively, followed by 26% growth in 2027. The analyst attributed his improved estimates to traditional workloads moving to the cloud and increased AI adoption. Anmuth also noted that AWS expanded its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to a $138 billion deal spanning eight years. He expects the AWS backlog to increase by $100 billion quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026.
Overall, Anmuth highlighted improving demand trends as Amazon catches up in the AI race. While higher fuel prices and international growth investments are expected to weigh on near-term operating income, the analyst is optimistic about AMZN’s medium-term margin expansion, driven by North America inventory optimization efforts, same-day delivery, accelerated robotics and automation deployment, and ad business.
Anmuth ranks No. 352 among more than 12,100 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 57% of the time, delivering an average return of 15.3%. See Amazon Stock Buybacks on TipRanks.
SanDisk
Moving on to flash memory maker SanDisk (SNDK), which is gaining from robust AI-led demand for its products. Following meetings with the company’s CFO Luis Visoso and other executives, Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan reaffirmed a buy rating on SNDK stock with a price target of $900, citing “secular opportunity as AI inference makes NAND more indispensable.”
Mohan said that he is now more confident about the sustainability of NAND demand, given robust requirement of hyperscalers and AI inference. Interestingly, the analyst noted that SanDisk and its customers are keen on signing long-term supply agreements under a new business model that can offset cyclicality.
Pricing in these contracts has fixed and variable components. Mohan added that these long-term contracts are offered to SanDisk’s customers across Cloud, Client, and Consumer segments, but the highest demand is in the data center business.
Among the key takeaways from the meetings, the analyst noted that given the risks associated with increasing capacity, management said SanDisk will not expand beyond the planned high-teens supply growth for 2026 to 2027. Moreover, the company remains focused on driving a shift in the mix to cloud. Additionally, management expects SanDisk to win market share in the higher-margin eSSD (enterprise solid-state drives) market, with BiCS8 eSSDs expected to boost revenue in the second half of 2026 and beyond.
Regarding concerns about Google’s TurboQuant compression methodology reducing LLM (large language model) memory usage and negatively impacting SanDisk, Mohan believes that it might actually enhance the ROI (return on investment) of hyperscalers’ capital spending, with enhanced efficiency potentially driving demand higher.
Mohan ranks No. 67 among more than 12,100 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 62% of the time, delivering an average return of 29.4%. See SanDisk Ownership Structure on TipRanks.
Nebius
Cloud computing company Nebius (NBIS) is also one of the beneficiaries of robust demand for AI infrastructure. The company recently announced a $27 billion five-year AI infrastructure agreement with social media giant Meta Platforms (META).
In reaction to the deal, D.A. Davidson analyst Alexander Platt reiterated a buy rating on Nebius stock and increased the price target to $200 from $150. The analyst noted that this new contract is in addition to a $3 billion deal announced by the two companies last year.
Platt highlighted that the new agreement comprises two parts – the first involving $12 billion of compute, where Nebius will be providing Meta with Vera Rubin systems in 2027; and a second part that allows Meta to purchase additional compute capacity of up to $15 billion. Given the scale and timing of these contracts, the analyst expects them to be placed across Nebius’ new greenfield data center locations.
The 5-star analyst noted that Nebius’ backlog now includes a Microsoft contract worth up to $19.4 billion and Meta Platforms’ capacity agreements worth nearly $30 billion. Interestingly, Platt still believes that Nebius may sign at least one more large hyperscaler deal over the next 12 months. In this regard, the analyst emphasized that Nebius recently outlined its plan to deploy more than 5 GW of capacity by the end of 2030, supporting Platt’s expectation of one more deal.
Overall, Platt believes that the Meta deal validates “Nebius as one of the leading neocloud players, alongside CoreWeave.” The deal reinforces Platt’s optimism about NBIS’ growth trajectory and expectations of improvement in margins and unit economics.
Platt ranks No. 416 among more than 12,100 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 88% of the time, delivering an average return of 100%. See Nebius Financials on TipRanks.
-1024x683.jpg "Strait Outta Hormuz: Getting the Iran Oil Story Straight")
