Why these 38 stocks getting trashed in the tariff crash are primed to outperform the S&P 500 over the next year: Evercore
Evercore ISI sees cheap buying opportunities in various stock market sectors as the trade war sends stocks into a bear market.
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- Tariff fears are sending the S&P 500 tumbling into bear market territory.
- Evercore sees opportunities to buy low amid the stock-market sell-off.
- The bank is betting on these 38 stocks to outperform the S&P 500 in the next 12 months.
As the stock market sell-off deepens and the S&P 500 hovers around bear market territory, the thought of wading into the bloodbath might seem unappetizing.
But for those who keep a cool head in the chaos, the tariff-induced market meltdown has created a great buying opportunity for high-quality companies at cheap prices, according to Evercore ISI.
President Donald Trump's hardline stance on tariff policy has sent the probability of a recession soaring, and stock prices have fallen across the board due to growth and stagflation concerns.
But investors might have accidentally thrown the baby out with the bathwater as the market plunges, Evercore said, leading to price dislocations for some high-quality companies.
Amid the stock market carnage, the advisory firm has identified a basket of "All Weather Outperformers." These are stocks with strong underlying fundamentals that Evercore deems to have been unfairly pummeled by tariff concerns.
"These dislocations have created the potential for shares of the highlighted companies to outperform the S&P 500 over the next 12 months irrespective of how the myriad uncertainties resolve themselves," Julian Emanuel, the head of the equity, derivatives, and quantitative strategy team at Evercore, wrote in a note last month.
These 38 stocks all have an "outperform" rating from Evercore analysts and span the gamut across several stock market sectors, including communications services, technology, consumer staples, energy, healthcare, and many others.
Some stocks, such as those in the consumer staples category, have especially recession and tariff-resistant business models relative to peers, while others, such as the healthcare companies, have more secular growth drivers.
Listed below are each of the stocks, their next 12 months' price targets as of March 14, 2025, and Evercore analyst commentary.
Markets Insider
Ticker: CHTR
Price target: $450
Analyst commentary: "Charter is our top pick across our defensive cable/telco coverage given the potential we see for the company to over-deliver against very muted expectations across broadband net adds, its underappreciated mobile and convergence strategy, and a ramping FCF profile that will support accelerating buybacks."
Markets Insider
Ticker: FWONK
Price target: $124
Analyst commentary: "Revenues are highly visible with locked-in deals across Sponsorship and Race Promotion, and we remain bullish on the opportunity for upside at Broadcasting as well with the upcoming US media rights renewal."
Markets Insider
Ticker: KMB
Price target: $168
Analyst commentary: "One of Staples's most defensive, with valuation support and credible re-rating potential: KMB trades below global peers, but Kimberly is transitioning from an industrial mindset to a global CPG player with an advantaged business model."
Markets Insider
Ticker: PG
Price target: $180
Analyst commentary: "Localized supply-chains in Europe, China and Latin America isolate/hedges Procter from tariffs in a multi-polar world."
Markets Insider
Ticker: BIRK
Price target: $75
Analyst commentary: "Profitability upside looks promising as they lap early factory under-utilization impacts in F2Q."
Markets Insider
Ticker: BURL
Price target: $345
Analyst commentary: "Consumer trade down is a tailwind as budgets remain constrained and tariffs create chaos in the supply chain, adding opportunities to purchase inventory at deep discounts."
Markets Insider
Ticker: TPR
Price target: $97
Analyst commentary: "Innovation and highly differentiated product is going to win in 2025 and Coach's innovation is the best we've seen in a decade."
Markets Insider
Ticker: CMG
Price target: $72
Analyst commentary: "Chipotle's peer leading value-for-the money scores and the recent introduction of Chipotle Honey Chicken points to a SSS [same-store sales] growth acceleration."
Markets Insider
Ticker: ORLY
Price target: $1,375
Analyst commentary: "Tariff winner (one of the few) given need based product distribution to Pros"
Markets Insider
Ticker: SHW
Price target: $420
Analyst commentary: "Dominant share gaining paint/coatings leader, growing EPS in a cyclical down market"
Markets Insider
Ticker: WMT
Price target: $100
Analyst commentary: "Low cost distributor decides how much tariffs need to pass through"
Markets Insider
Ticker: CNQ
Price target: $41 ($58 CAD)
Analyst commentary: "Could argue a lot of the hard asset elements of Energy, particularly those where starting valuations are low enough, are pretty durable to the macro environment"
Markets Insider
Ticker: XOM
Price target: $135
Analyst commentary: "Dominant weight in the unloved energy index with earnings stability despite oil price volatility (balanced exposure products, chemicals, low carbon businesses)"
Markets Insider
Ticker: NRG
Price target: $126
Analyst commentary: "Despite a tight ERCOT power market and increasing power demand within its service regions, NRG is trading at ~6.5x 2027 EV/EBITDA which is ~1.0x below its November 2023 (pre-AI enthusiasm) FY2 multiple."
Markets Insider
Ticker: VST
Price target: $202
Analyst commentary: "VST's current FY2 EV/EBITDA multiple is only ~1x-1.5x above its November 2023 (pre-AI enthusiasm) FY2 EV/EBITDA multiple, implying the market has seemingly fully discounted any possibility of a potential data center power deal for the next two years."
Markets Insider
Ticker: MSCI
Price target: $703
Analyst commentary: "We think organic growth will inflect higher in '25 as the lagged impact of still higher equity markets vs '22 draw down levels results in higher client spend on MSCI's products."
Markets Insider
Ticker: INSM
Price target: $90
Analyst commentary: "Investors hoping INSM will be acquired but willing to fund the launch of brensocatib in bronchiectasis, which they believe is a $5B+ opportunity"
Markets Insider
Ticker: VRTX
Price target: $515.16
Analyst commentary: "$12B bell weather cystic fibrosis (CF) franchise, on its way to $18B+ as the drug extends lifespan of these patients, with no competition"
Markets Insider
Ticker: ASND
Price target: $260
Analyst commentary: "ASND launched their second drug, Yorvipath, in December last year. It's off to a hot start, and we believe each quarter this year will continue driving consensus revisions higher."
Markets Insider
Ticker: BBIO
Price target: $60
Analyst commentary: "Currently under pressure as top 2 shareholders have been selling; once this abates, we see the potential for substantial upside."
Markets Insider
Ticker: NBIX
Price target: $190
Analyst commentary: "The company also has a pipeline with late-stage assets for depression and schizophrenia that we believe will start generating greater interest/value in time."
Markets Insider
Ticker: CVS
Price target: $80
Analyst commentary: "Valuations (9x '26 P/E) are not capturing the potential for up to 10% EPS outperformance in 2025 and likely ~high teems+ EPS growth in 2026 that is more than enough to overcome the likely range of government policy decisions re PBMs, Medicaid, and ACA exchanges."
Markets Insider
Ticker: CAH
Price target: $150
Analyst commentary: "Investors have been worried about Medical profit growth given Mexico tariff risk, but most of CAH's products are covered by USMCA exemptions and so tariff risk is lower than feared (plus pharma business is a likely tariff beneficiary as higher costs can be passed on)."
Markets Insider
Ticker: EXAS
Price target: $70
Analyst commentary: "Secular growth story immune from tariffs / NIH funding / other hot button topics pertaining to the new administration"
Markets Insider
Ticker: MDT
Price target: $104
Analyst commentary: "Beneficiary from acyclicality of MedTech volumes overall, and less exposed to administration HW's (e.g. cuts potentially impacting customer capex) due to lower hospital capex exposure (vs. peers)"
Markets Insider
Ticker: DHI
Price target: $204
Analyst commentary: "Given DHI's relatively strong operating metrics and durable cash flows, stock does not need strong market conditions to perform well."
Markets Insider
Ticker: PHM
Price target: $179
Analyst commentary: "Given PHM's relatively strong operating metrics and durable cash flows, stock does not need strong market conditions to perform well."
Markets Insider
Ticker: SPG
Price target: $191
Analyst commentary: "Clearly a major pullback in consumer spending would be a negative for SPG but they have a great balance sheet, dominate the mall business and have long term contracts so the drop in cash flow won't be that great even in a normal recession."
Markets Insider
Ticker: AMZN
Price target: $270
Analyst commentary: "Fair amount of dependence on utility/non-disc spend with cloud and some non-discretionary retail"
Markets Insider
Ticker: GOOGL
Price target: $205
Analyst commentary: "Fair amount of dependence on utility/non-discretion spend with cloud and performance marketing spend (the last part of marketing spend to get cut)"
Markets Insider
Ticker: IBM
Price target: $275
Analyst commentary: "The company's customer base skews toward large enterprises (~93% of F500 are IBM customers) that are more stable vs. SME/SMB customers."
Markets Insider
Ticker: MSI
Price target: $500
Analyst commentary: "Budgets for public safety agencies (majority of business) tend to remain stable/grow over time."
Markets Insider
Ticker: ASML
Price target: $1,055 ($965 EUR)
Analyst commentary: "We view ASML's EUV lithography tools as a key solution to shrink transistors and improve the performance per watt of AI chips."
Markets Insider
Ticker: NVDA
Price target: $190
Analyst commentary: "We expect NVDA to remain the dominant provider of AI solutions for both internal workloads at hyperscalers as well as in the faster growing external workloads which are driven by enterprises that require a full-stack solution."
Markets Insider
Ticker: TXN
Price target: $284
Analyst commentary: "Our estimates are above consensus, and we expect TXN to report upside surprises through 2025 as customers ship back to consumption levels and restock inventories."
Markets Insider
Ticker: PANW
Price target: $230
Analyst commentary: "Cybersecurity software remains resilient despite trade and tariff imbalances. Strong secular trends and consistent demand ensure stability across all market conditions and this time is no exception."
Markets Insider
Ticker: MSFT
Price target: $500
Analyst commentary: "After going sideways for ~12 months, sentiment is apathetic and shares are poised to rally on a clean Azure result in late April."
Markets Insider
Ticker: CHRW
Price target: $128
Analyst commentary: "In the event that the freight cycle shows additional weakness, CHRW is, as an asset-light freight broker (trucking primarily), relatively defensive (though not totally immune) owing to its relatively greater mix of variable cost (i.e., cost of transportation) that can decrease innately."
