Top 5 Stocks to Buy Now

Looking for your next stock idea?

MarketBeat’s Top 5 Stocks report highlights five companies carrying some of Wall Street’s strongest consensus analyst ratings.

These aren’t lightly followed stocks, either. Every company is worth at least $5 billion and has been rated by 10 or more analysts within the past 12 months.

For each stock, you’ll see both the bull case and bear case, based on recent news and MarketBeat financial data, so you can weigh the opportunity and the risks before deciding whether it belongs on your watchlist.

See which five stocks made the list and get the full report free.

See the Top 5

☕️ GM Munchers! Got in trouble with my wife for not killing a lady bug on command. She’s never had to stare at a red portfolio for six months straight, so she hasn’t unlocked my monk-level patience yet. One bug is nothing.

On today’s menu:

• 🐻 The Hidden Bear Market Nobody’s Noticing

• 🚀 Elon Is Giving Every American Kid A SpaceX Share

• 📦 Morgan Stanley Likes Amazon

• 👙 Victoria’s Secret Is Having A Monster Comeback

• ✅ 5 Nasdaq Stocks, Texted Free

Yesterday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

🐻 The Hidden Bear Market Nobody’s Noticing

Here’s a head-scratcher. The S&P 500 sits just about 2% below its all-time high, so on the surface everything looks fine. But peek under the hood and it’s a different picture entirely. More than 80% of the world’s stocks are already in a drawdown, meaning they’ve fallen meaningfully from their peaks. In fact, around 84% of S&P 500 stocks are down at least 10% from their highs, and nearly 60% are down 20% or more, which is official bear market territory. So how is the index still near a record? A tiny handful of giant AI names are holding the whole thing up.

The real carnage was in chips. Last week, the semiconductor index fell 11.4% over 8 straight losing days, its longest skid since 2008. The fear is simple: investors suddenly worry that all the money being poured into AI might not pay off fast enough. Software stocks got hit even harder, because people are terrified AI will straight-up replace them. Meanwhile, and this is the key tell, about 70% of the S&P 500 actually rose last week. Let that sink in. Most stocks went up while the headline-grabbing tech names bled.

By the way, the doom-sayers were out in force. Sunday night, plenty of people online were screaming that Monday would be a “Black Monday,” a total market meltdown. It didn’t happen. Stocks actually bounced. So much for the panic.

• 📉 The index is a mask: A few mega-cap AI stocks are propping up the whole market, hiding real pain underneath in hundreds of regular companies.

• 💻 Software got crushed: The fear that AI will replace software businesses sent that whole corner of the market tumbling, whether it’s deserved or not.

• 🔄 Money is rotating, not fleeing: Investors sold pricey tech and moved into boring, steady sectors like staples and healthcare, which is a shuffle, not a stampede for the exits.

The Munch Take: Let’s be crystal clear about our view. We are not pessimists. We believe AI and technology are going to bring an absolute boom to the economy over the coming years, full stop. But booms come with growing pains, and this is one of them. When everyone piles into the same ten names and ignores everything else, the quiet opportunity shows up exactly where nobody’s looking. That’s the whole game: don’t chase the trend, scan your peripherals for what’s been unfairly left for dead. Right now, hundreds of quality businesses are sitting 20%, 30%, even 40% below their highs while the crowd obsesses over a handful of AI stocks. Some of those beaten-down names are broken for good reason. But some are perfectly solid companies thrown out with the bathwater, and those are the ones we hunt. This is also why we keep preaching real, hard-to-replace assets, the kind of businesses and value that survive whatever the market throws at them, instead of chasing whatever’s hottest. A “hidden bear market” isn’t a reason to panic. It’s a reason to sharpen your shopping list. The headline index will take care of itself. Your job is to find the bargains hiding behind it.

War-time stocks I bought last month (Ad)

I was buying Amazon and Apple in February while the market chopped. Then, when the first bombs hit Iran, I got out.

Geopolitical conflicts are tough on tech stocks.

My name's Scott Redler. I've been a professional trader for 30+ years.

Right now, there's little to buy. But you'll know when to start buying. Just use my #1 indicator. It's free and you can use it on your chart right now.

👉️ Get The Free Indicator >>

STORY OF THE DAY

🚀 Elon Is Giving Every American Kid A SpaceX Share

Here’s a headline you don’t see every day. Elon Musk announced that in 2027, he plans to give one of his SpaceX shares to every single kid in America. That’s roughly 72 million children, each getting a share worth about $150. Add it up, and Musk is handing out around $10.8 billion worth of stock. He called it “the first of many,” hinting that more giveaways could follow.

Let’s talk about why this is genuinely cool, and also a little mind-bending. On the generosity front, getting tens of millions of young people into the stock market is a fantastic idea. Owning even one share teaches kids how investing works, how companies grow, and how real wealth gets built over time. That early lesson can shape a lifetime of smart money habits, which is a gift far bigger than $150.

Now here’s the part that really puts Musk’s wealth into perspective. That $10.8 billion sounds like a fortune, and it is. But it represents only about 1.5% of the SpaceX shares Musk currently controls. Let that sink in. He can give away roughly $11 billion in stock, and it barely makes a dent in his pile.

• 🧒 It’s a financial head start: Millions of kids would own a piece of one of the most exciting companies on Earth, sparking real interest in investing early.

• 📉 No big impact on the stock: Since it’s such a tiny slice of Musk’s holdings, we don’t expect this to meaningfully move the SpaceX share price when it happens.

• 📅 It’s a 2027 thing: Musk promised this for next year, and he hasn’t yet explained exactly how the shares will be handed out.

The Munch Take: We love this, full stop. Anything that gets young people owning assets and understanding the market is a win in our book, since we preach constantly that owning things is how you avoid getting left behind. Here’s the sharp lesson hiding inside the feel-good headline, though: an $11 billion gift being just 1.5% of one man’s stake is a jaw-dropping reminder of how concentrated wealth has become. The stock itself, down about 8% this year and sitting near $150 at a $2 trillion value, won’t flinch from this. We’re still not buyers of SpaceX up here, it’s far too wild and pricey for us. But giving a generation their first share? That’s a trade we can cheer for. Teach a kid to own, and you’ve done more than any stock tip ever could.

MARKET OVERVIEW

Tasty Movers & Shakers

🥇 Special Report: Own every major AI stock for $38. Get paid every Thursday (Ad)

💻 $INTC Intel rose 2.43% after JPMorgan upgraded it to Neutral, arguing the recent selloff made the valuation easier to stomach.

📦 $AMZN Amazon climbed 4.98% after Morgan Stanley named it a top pick, betting the retail giant can win in AI even as Meta’s Muse eyes its shopping turf.

🔥 $NVDA Nvidia gained 1.38%, $SNDK Sandisk jumped 5.53%, and $MRVL Marvell rose 4.06% as chip stocks finally bounced after nine straight losing sessions.

🧬 $SLN Silence Therapeutics exploded 125.58% on a roughly $1.3 billion all-cash buyout by German drugmaker Merck. Nothing doubles a biotech overnight quite like a giant showing up with a checkbook.

🏭 $CLF Cleveland-Cliffs surged 16% after the steel producer crushed third-quarter earnings and revenue estimates.

📊 $DDOG Datadog jumped 5.48% after Bernstein upgraded it to Outperform and hiked its price target to $350 from $237. A bold call on an AI-adjacent software name was exactly the spark buyers wanted.

STOCK OF THE DAY

👙 Victoria’s Secret Is Having A Monster Comeback

Talk about a glow-up. $VSXY Victoria’s Secret climbed 3% on Monday, adding to a genuinely remarkable run. The stock is up roughly 61% this year, and over the past 12 months it has soared around 185%. For a brand that many people had written off as a relic, that’s a stunning turnaround, and the story behind it is a masterclass in how to actually think like an investor.

So why is this happening? The spark is the return of the famous Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. After being cancelled following 2018, the show was gone for about five years before coming back, and this weekend it hit the runway in Los Angeles with Kylie Jenner wearing a $50 million Fantasy Bra. That kind of star power generates massive buzz and reconnects the brand with younger shoppers.

But here’s the deeper, more interesting force at work, and it’s a secondary effect of the GLP-1 wave. Think about it. With millions of people on Ozempic and similar drugs, losing weight and getting leaner, demand for new clothes, including intimate apparel, naturally rises. Bodies change, wardrobes get replaced, and confidence goes up. Victoria’s Secret is a quiet beneficiary of that whole cultural shift.

• 🧬 The Ozempic ripple effect: As people slim down on GLP-1 drugs, they buy new clothes, and smaller sizes are moving fast, which plays right into this brand’s hands.

• 💃 The show is back in culture: After roughly five years away, the fashion show’s return put Victoria’s Secret back in the spotlight and back in the conversation.

• 📈 Wall Street is on board: Analysts point to stronger brand buzz, healthier store traffic, and growing demand from younger customers as real signs the turnaround has legs.

The Munch Take: This is one of the cleanest investing lessons we can share, so pay attention. Being a great investor isn’t just about spotting a trend. It’s about looking at your peripherals, seeing the second and third ripple effects that everyone else misses. Everybody knows about the Ozempic craze. The smarter move is asking, “Okay, so who quietly benefits when a whole country gets leaner and more confident?” The answer, it turns out, is the lingerie brand that just came roaring back into the culture. That’s the game. Now, to be clear, we’re not chasing this stock. It’s had a spectacular run, and buying after a 185% rip is how you end up holding the bag. We’re not buyers here. But we are absolutely watchers, of the stock and the show. The real win isn’t catching this one late. It’s training your eye to spot the next peripheral play before the crowd does.

5 Nasdaq Stocks, Texted Free (Ad)

Sixty seconds. That's about how long it takes to have 5 Nasdaq ticker symbols on your phone once you request them.

Good Morning Alerts' analyst put together 5 Nasdaq stocks the research points to for the second half of 2026, with price targets and the reasoning behind each pick.

It's free. No credit card, and you can text STOP any time.

👉️ Send me the 5 tickers >>

Pre-Market Fuel

1. 😂 Donald Trump wants to rename what?

2. 🤯 This is a crazy NYC stat.

3. 🇨🇳 China’s economy is booming.

4. 🤝 Is the Iran war about to end?

🍪 Munchy Memes

Beat the Crowd: Get Real-Time Market Triggers

Email is great, but the financial markets move at the speed of light. By the time an urgent stock catalyst hits your inbox, the biggest price moves are often already over. Join our priority mobile broadcast to receive instant, bite-sized text notifications on major breaking updates, unexpected earnings beats, and massive institutional volume spikes—long before the rest of the market catches on.

Activate Free SMS Alerts from MarketMunch