What Alphabet, Crocs and Tesla stocks have in common, according to Piper Sandler

Posted by jbrumley on October 11, 2021 9:18 PM

By Keris Lahiff, CNBC

A search engine, a shoemaker and an electric vehicle company have all caught one analyst's eye.

Piper Sandler's chief market technician, Craig Johnson, says Alphabet, Crocs and Tesla could all mean big money for investors - his firm has overweight ratings on each.

"These three names, they're showing meaningful upside to the fundamental price objectives," Johnson told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Friday, pointing to Piper Sandler's recent "Alpha Alignment" report that highlighted these stocks among others.

"First if you start with a company such as Alphabet, very nice price trend, great relative outperformance, you read through the fundamentals on it and Tom Champion who follows it for us talks about catalysts being YouTube, catalysts being the conversion to the cloud as a driver," he said.

The firm has a $3,034 price target on Alphabet, implying nearly 9% upside from Friday's close. The stock has already done well so far this year - it is by far the best-performing FAANG stock with a 60% gain.

"Next, if you go through and you start looking at stocks like Tesla ... it's likely reversed a downtrend. We're now challenging some highs around $763 and we're setting ourselves up to go back and retest the old high so clearly again a lot of upside," said Johnson.

Piper Sandler's $1,200 price target implies 53% upside. It closed Friday at $785.49 a share.

"Then lastly is Crocs," he said. "Crocs right now is rechecking the lower end of an upper trending channel, putting up decent relative strength. ... The chart again looks very constructive and should be bought."

Crocs has already had an impressive run this year, rallying more than 108%. Piper Sandler's $212 price target would mean another 63% increase from Friday's close.

Asked to pick between those three, Simpler Trading's head of options, Danielle Shay, backs Johnson's call on Tesla.

"I'm always a huge fan of Tesla and especially with the numbers that they put out over the course of the past couple of weeks. I mean they've been able to do phenomenally even throughout the chip shortage," Shay said during the same interview.

Tesla said earlier this month that it had delivered 241,300 electric vehicles in the three months to September, above analysts' estimates. The company also announced recently its plans to move its headquarters to Texas from California.

"Once the chip shortage especially starts to get a little bit better, I imagine them doing even better," she said. "We have more people in not only Europe but the U.S. and China also switching to electric vehicles as well. And we haven't even really seen what Tesla can do with Tesla solar yet, so I'm definitely a buyer of Tesla."

Disclosure: Shay holds TSLA.

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