The S&P 500 remains near record levels as the markets have been strong this year. Finding good stocks to buy in such a hot market can be challenging. But a couple of growth stocks with lots of potential, based on their price targets from Wall Street, are Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) and Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT). Here’s how high they could go, according to Wall Street, and whether these are slam-dunk buys for investors.
Viking Therapeutics: 99% upside
Analysts see Viking potentially doubling in value over the course of the next 12 months; it has a consensus price target of more than $112. Analysts have generally been bullish on the pharmaceutical company, setting buy ratings for Viking recently.
That optimism stems from the hopes analysts and investors have for VK2735, a glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) treatment that has been demonstrating encouraging results in clinical trials. The potential for the drug to take market share in a $100 billion anti-obesity market has made Viking an attractive speculative investment with a lot of potential upside.
The company generates no revenue today and has no approved products. For small pharma stocks, obtaining approval for a product can send shares parabolic. If you also consider the size of the GLP-1 weight loss market, then there’s even more reason for investors to be optimistic that if VK2735 obtains approval, shares of Viking could indeed take off.
VK2735 has shown in a phase 2 trial that it can help people lose approximately 15% of their body weight while also being safe. In addition to that, the company also has a pill version of the drug, and participants in a phase 1 trial lost 5% of their body weight after just four weeks of use.
If one or both of those treatments obtain approval from regulators, that could drive a lot of bullishness in Viking’s stock. The only problem is that isn’t a guarantee. Until phase 3 trials take place and they, too, show strong results, there’s still a fair bit of risk here, especially with the stock trading at a fairly sizable $6 billion market cap.
While there could be significant returns to be made with Viking’s stock, investors should tread carefully as an underwhelming trial could send the stock crashing.
Riot Platforms: 80% upside
The consensus price target for crypto mining stock Riot Platforms is a little under $18, which suggests this struggling stock could rise by up to 80% from where it is today. That’s even as three of the past four analysts who have set price targets have lowered their expectations for Riot.
Riot is a Bitcoin mining company and so a lot of its success will depend on the price of the cryptocurrency. But as the price of the cryptocurrency has risen more than 60% this year, Riot’s stock is down 36%. Earlier this year, there was a Bitcoin halving event that cut the rewards for Bitcoin miners in half. And while in the past that has led to a rising price of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency hasn’t taken off since then. Without a corresponding increase in the digital currency to offset the effects of halving, investors have become bearish on Riot’s stock.
This is even as the company recently posted a record profit of $211.8 million in its latest quarterly results, for the period ending March 31. Investors know, however, that those profits are not sustainable as a lot depends on the price of crypto and Riot’s earnings can be choppy. In two of the past four quarters, the company has incurred a net loss.
Riot is looking to bolster its production capabilities and has been trying to acquire Bitfarms to “create the world’s largest publicly listed Bitcoin miner.” Thus far, it hasn’t been successful, but its stake in the Bitcoin miner is now up to around 12% as it has been buying up shares of the company.
There is a lot of potential upside for Riot especially as its production capacity increases, but it’s still going to depend largely on where Bitcoin’s valuation goes. As a result, this is a highly speculative and risky stock to be holding, and it’s another investment that investors should be careful with, as a big part of the attractive upside it possesses (per Wall Street) has to do with the stock’s recent struggles and the lower valuation that Riot is at today.
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David Jagielski has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
2 Growth Stocks Wall Street Analysts Think Can Soar by at Least 80% was originally published by The Motley Fool
