Reuters / NASA
- The S&P 500 is coming off its best year since 2013, and Goldman Sachs is forecasting a much more difficult year for stocks in 2020.
- David Kostin, the firm's chief US equity strategist, still sees large upside in some names - most notably in sectors that trailed the broader market last year.
- Kostin highlights 11 stocks he thinks will rise by more than 30% in 2020.
- Click here more for BI Prime stories.
Last year was a remarkably strong one for stocks and for most other assets, and few experts think that's going to happen again in 2020.
That means making the right choices could be much more important, and David Kostin, Goldman Sachs' chief US equity strategist, expects a 5% gain for the S&P 500 index in the new year. With a broadening split between winners and losers, he's laying out the stocks he thinks have the most potential right now.
He projects that the top stocks in the index will rise 30% or more. That would be highly desirable any year, but looks that much better in a more difficult market.
Looking at Kostin's choices, some themes emerge quickly: Seven of his top 11 stocks come from the healthcare and energy sectors. Both industries lagged the market substantially in 2019, and energy companies broadly have struggled for far longer than that.
"Energy currently appears to be the most undervalued sector," he wrote in a note to clients. "Implied EPS growth for Energy averaged 2.1 percentage points above the S&P 500 over the past 10 years but now is 8.9pp below the S&P 500."
While not all of Kostin's picks were losers in 2019, most did lag the market substantially.
These are the 11 stocks that Goldman Sachs believes are poised for the largest gains in 2020. They are ranked in increasing order of upside required to reach the firm's price targets. All percentages are calculated based on their December 31 closing prices.
Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price here.