As the calendar turns to 2025, the leading Wall Street firms are releasing their top stock picks for the new year. Typically, these are companies that analysts have incredible conviction in. In addition, they often have good upside to the assigned price target and are bestowed with either a Buy or Overweight rating, depending on the company providing the coverage.

With all the major indices making strong moves higher in 2024, we were very interested to see what the top prognosticators across Wall Street think will happen in 2025 as we start the second quarter of the new century. Not surprisingly, many of the firms we cover are optimistic about the future despite some trepidation after last year’s substantial upside. Every year, the top Wall Street firms release a list of their top stock picks for the next 12 months. Typically, these are companies that analysts have an incredible conviction for. In addition, they often have good upside to the assigned price target.

Raymond James said this when discussing the Analysts’ Best Picks List methodology:

The Best Picks selection process first screens eligible analysts based on experience and stock rating success, as measured by StarMine and performance on other Raymond James recommended lists. Analysts meeting the criteria are then invited to propose their best Strong Buy-rated recommendation for the subsequent 12-month period, subject to liquidity criteria. Analysts sometimes recommend more than one stock, but the final list only allows one stock per analyst. In all cases, a three-person committee vets each recommendation for potential inclusion.

We decided to focus on the four companies paying the highest dividends in the group, as total return may be the most successful strategy for growth and income investors in 2025.

Care Trust REIT

With a rich 4.34% dividend, good upside potential, and an aging population this is a great idea for conservative accounts in 2025. Care Trust Reit Inc.’s (NYSE: CTRE) primary business consists of acquiring, financing, developing, and owning real property to be leased to third-party tenants in the healthcare sector.

As of March 31, 2024, the company owned directly or through a joint venture and leased to independent operators:

• 228 skilled nursing facilities
• Multi-service campuses
• Assisted living facilities
• Independent living facilities consisting of 24,189 operational beds and units located in 29 states with the highest concentration of properties by rental income located in California and Texas

As of March 31, 2024, the company also had other real estate-related investments:

• One preferred equity investment
• Nine real estate-secured loans receivable
• Four mezzanine loans receivable with a carrying value of $233.3 million

The Raymond James price target is an aggressive $35.

Cigna

Healthcare names have been market laggards in 2024, yielding 2% with solid upside potential this is an outstanding idea for 2025. The Cigna Group (NYSE: CI) provides insurance and related products and services in the United States with its subsidiaries.

The Evernorth Health Services segment provides a range of coordinated and point-solution health services, including

• Pharmacy benefits,
• Home delivery pharmacy
• Specialty pharmacy
• Distribution, and care delivery
• Management solutions to health plans, employers, government organizations, and health care providers

The company’s Cigna Healthcare segment offers:

• Medical, pharmacy, behavioral health, dental, and other products and services for insured and self-insured customers
• Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Medicare Part D plans for seniors, as well as individual health insurance plans; and health care coverage in its international markets, as well as health care benefits for mobile individuals and employees of multinational organizations.

In addition, it offers permanent insurance contracts sold to corporations to provide coverage on the lives of certain employees for financing employer-paid future benefit obligations. The company distributes its products and services through insurance brokers and consultants directly to employers, unions, and other groups, or individuals, and private and public exchanges.

Raymond James has a huge $415 target price.

Equinix

In March of 2024, former Google Cloud executive Adrian Fox-Martin became the CEO of Equinix Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX). Fox-Martin has more than 25 years of experience in the technology sector and has held senior positions at companies such as Oracle and SAP.

Digital leaders harness Equinix’s trusted platform to connect foundational infrastructure at software speed. Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners, and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences, and multiply their value while supporting their sustainability goals.

The company announced last year the availability of Dell Technologies PowerStore on Equinix Metal, a new, enterprise-grade Storage as a Service (STaaS) solution. With flexible configurations, Dell PowerStore on Equinix Metal can help enterprises manage a wide range of high-performance multi-cloud workloads through low-latency connectivity and proximity to major public clouds.

The Raymond James target price objective is posted at $1,085.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

This legendary Silicon Valley tech giant offers a 2.40% dividend and a safer way to play big tech in 2025. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (NYSE: HPE) provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan.

It operates in six segments:

• Compute
• HPC & AI
• Storage
• Intelligent Edge
• Financial Services
• Corporate Investments

The company offers general-purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers, HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers, HPE Synergy, HPE Alletra, HPE GreenLake, Zerto, HPE InfoSight, and HPE CloudPhysics storage products, HPE Cray EX, HPE Cray XD, and converged edge systems, and HPE Superdome Flex, HPE Nonstop, and HPE Integrity products.

It also provides HPE Aruba products that include hardware products, such as:

• Wi-Fi access points, switches, and gateways
• HPE Aruba Networking software and services comprising cloud-based management, network management and access control, analytics and assurance, software-defined wide-area networking, network security, analytics and assurance, and location services software
• Professional and support services, as well as as-a-service and consumption models

In addition, the company offers:

• Leasing, financing, IT consumption, and utility programs and asset management services for customers to facilitate technology deployment models and the acquisition of various IT solutions, including hardware, software, and services from Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• Consultative-led services; HPE Ezmeral Container Platform; HPE Ezmeral Software Container Platform and HPE Ezmeral Software Data Fabric; OpsRamp; and Hewlett Packard Labs.

It serves commercial and large enterprise groups, such as business and public sector enterprises; and through various partners comprising resellers, distribution partners, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, systems integrators, and advisory firms.

Raymond James has set a $29 target price.

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