10 Best Companies To Invest In for 2022

Investors could do nothing but cheer their returns in 2021, as the S&P 500 shook off the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and returned over 26% to investors through Dec. 16, 2021. Whether the same will be true in 2022, however, is a question mark. Many analysts expect 2022 to be more of a “stock picker’s market,” meaning the broad averages may be lackluster but there will still be pockets of opportunities. Check with your financial advisor to see whether any of these names match your investment objectives and risk tolerance. Here is a wide range of stocks that may outperform in 2022 based on a variety of factors, from being undervalued to being oversold.

Tesla has continued to outperform expectations for years now, following up its extraordinary 700% gain in 2020 with a 31% YTD gain in 2021 (as of Dec. 16). In 2022, further gains may be ahead. The company has transformed itself into a profit engine, after years of losing money, and analysts expect the company to earn $8.17 per share in 2022. On top of that, Tesla will be opening two new gigafactories in 2022, in Texas and Germany, and this should increase its production greatly. With a market cap now exceeding 800 trillion, Tesla is on a seemingly unstoppable roll.

Atlassian (TEAM)

Atlassian is the Australian-based software company behind products such as Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello and OpsGenie. The company’s software is primarily for software developers and IT departments, but it also helps small businesses collaborate and become more effective. Atlassian’s growth boomed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s likely to remain in favor as even more companies are now familiar with how productive Atalassian’s software can make corporate teams, whether they are remote or return to the office. Consensus analyst estimates are a buy, with a 12-month median price target of $338, or about 83% above current levels (as of June 20).

Find companies with large addressable markets

Finally, you’ll want to invest in businesses with large addressable markets — and long runways for growth still ahead. Industry reports from research firms such as Gartner (NYSE:IT) and eMarketer — which provide estimates of industry sizes, projections for growth, and market share figures — can be very helpful in this regard.

Dr. Preston D. Cherry, PhD, CFP

Dr. Cherry: Because growth stocks tend to operate in a growth business cycle or business sector, finding high potential growth stocks should contain metrics that attempt to confirm or support current growth and best signal sustainable growth patterns. One important feature of a growth company is to ask, “do they possess a unique business service or product in their sector that provides a valuable moat?” This service or product is the lifeline of growth where the company needs to market, produce, deliver, and protect better than competitors and new entrants. Performance metrics to consider are whether the company shows historical increases in earnings over select periods and profit margin analysis, which illustrates how a company can manage costs and increase revenues. Other analysis considerations are the technical chart trend characteristics and experienced market analysts’ forward growth and price projections.

Dr. Cherry: Growth and value stocks tend to differ in a few areas, such as company size, business stage, and revenues to return gains to the shareholder. Growth stocks tend to be in the emerging markets or small or mid-cap company size areas whereas value stock companies tend to be large-cap. The size of companies tends to be the lens of what business stage a company resides. Growth stocks tend to be in the early to mid-business stages, the growth stages (although a small segment of large companies can be growth companies too), and value stock companies tend to be larger, more mature business stage companies. The value stock companies tend to be trading at a discount, “on-sale,” or a premium, “overvalued,” to their valuation, thus their name, finding value. Growth stock companies tend to reinvest their earnings back into the company and return value to shareholders solely through stock price appreciation. In comparison, value companies may return earnings to investors through a dividend, representing income to an investor and complements stock price appreciation. This income and stock price appreciation mean a total return approach.

Scott Stewart, PhD

Dr. Stewart: The Gordon valuation model is an excellent tool to illustrate the difference between growth and value stocks. Professor Gordon’s model, with some simplifying assumptions, shows that stock prices equal next year’s earnings (e) divided by the expression r – g, where “r” is a discount rate and “g” is a growth rate. For the same stock price, a lower growth rate necessitates a higher earnings number. Conversely, (illustrated by dividing both sides by e) a high-p/e stock is associated with a high growth rate. Of course, these numbers reflect investor expectations.

Investors bid up the p/e ratios of some stocks because, despite low current earnings relative to their market values, they expect earnings to grow at high rates. These are traditionally defined as growth stocks. Tesla stock is a good example of a growth stock, with its 154 p/e multiple and 73% earnings growth rate (using Yahoo Finance data).

Dr. Stewart: Note that a company’s risk is embedded in its discount rate “r.” As a result, companies with stable earnings will justify higher p/e multiples than ones with volatile earnings, other things equal. Clorox, a large-cap, stable-earnings company with only modest growth expectations (basically 0% using Yahoo Finance data) still justifies a p/e of 30 (using next fiscal year’s earnings).

Empirical evidence suggests that high-growth stocks underperform low-growth, low-p/e “value” stocks over the very long term. For example, the Russell small-cap Value index yielded roughly 3% a year higher than its Growth peer over the forty years ending 2019, and at lower return volatility. One explanation is that investors over-estimate the sustainability of high-growing companies since these “glamour” stocks subsequently fail to deliver on those high expectations. However, there can be long periods in which growth stocks outperform, such as the 10 years ending 2020.

The theory and evidence suggest that the key to picking good growth stocks is to identify the ones whose earnings growth rates will accelerate in the short term (increasing the p/e and price) and not disappoint in the long term (sustaining e growth and maintaining a high p/e). For value stocks, some practitioners suggest picking companies that investors have given up on (ones with very low-p/e or other multiples if e is less than zero), that won’t fail in the short-term and will recover in the long-term. Not easy tasks!

Sources:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-best-companies-invest-2022-005108423.html
https://www.gobankingrates.com/investing/best-companies-to-invest-in-for-2022/
https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/types-of-stocks/growth-stocks/