Will the region’s top stocks keep dominating in 2025?
The tri-county region enters 2025 with 33 publicly traded companies headquartered here, with more than two dozen of those trading on the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ.
Of those, five companies have market capitalizations higher than $9 billion and are some of the biggest players in their respective industries.
Here’s a look at how analysts expect those five stocks to perform in 2024:
AMGEN
Thousand Oaks-based Amgen is one of the world’s largest biotech companies and the largest company in the tri-county region by market cap, with a valuation of around $140.1 billion as of Dec. 31. Its shares closed the year at $260.64.
Amgen already had one of its biggest years in 2023, with its $28 billion purchase of Horizon Therapeutics, by far the largest deal ever done by a tri-county company, being completed.
But in 2024, the company had some slight hiccups, the most recent being that drug trial data from its obesity treatment, MariTide, underperformed analyst expectations.
That coupled with some anxiety from the Trump administration and how they will deal with biotech over the next four years led to the stock losing about 6% over the final month.
But some analysts are still bullish on the company in 2025.
Argus Research, a New York-based investment service company, rated Amgen with a buy and a target price of $290 in 2025.
Overall, the report seems to believe that Amgen and the healthcare sector as a whole could benefit in 2025.
Analysts over at Zacks Research appear to be a bit more skittish, however, recently dropped its rating on Amgen from outperform to neutral while maintaining a price target of $292.
The company’s report said that while it has some good cancer treatments in its pipeline, some of its catalog medicines of older medicines continue to use revenue as generic drug versions of those drugs are taking more market share.
Moreover, increased pricing headwinds and competitive pressure are hurting sales of many products, including some biosimilars. Weakness in some key brands like Otezla and Lumakras create potential revenue headwinds.
THE TRADE DESK
Ventura-based The Trade Desk had a stellar year in 2024, something that continues to be a trend for the advertising technology company.
The Trade Desk enters 2025 with a market cap of about $58 billion as of Dec. 31, when the stock closed the year at $117.53.
This upcoming year could be an even bigger one for The Trade Desk with the company announcing plans to release a new streaming TV operating system in 2025.
Aptly named after the company’s headquarters location, The Trade Desk announced Ventura on Nov. 20 and said it will partner with smart TV original equipment manufacturers and other streaming TV aggregators to deploy it.
The company has been working on Ventura since 2021 and it believes it “represents a major advance in streaming TV operating systems.”
Zacks currently rates The Trade Desk as a hold.
According to TipRanks, based on 26 Wall Street analysts offering 12-month price targets for Trade Desk in the last three months, the average price target is $130.45 with a high forecast of $150 and a low forecast of $57. The average price target represents a 10.99% change from the last price of $117.53.
DECKERS
No company in the tri-county region had a better 2024 than Deckers.
A Goleta-based footwear company, Deckers had a market cap of about $17 billion heading into 2024 and ended the year with a market cap of $31 billion, catapulting past Teledyne as the third-largest company in the region. Shares closed the year at $203.09.
In 2024, Deckers shares were up more than 80%, with the company gaining an additional $14 billion in market cap in one year alone.
As such, analysts have continued high hopes for Deckers and especially its running shoe brand, Hoka One One, which has appeared to corner the market.
Zacks currently has an outperform rating on the stock and a price target of $232. It also has a strong buy rating in the short term.
“Driven by Hoka and Ugg’s impressive growth, balanced channel performance, and successful global expansion, Deckers shows a well-executed strategy,” the report read.
TELEDYNE
Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies is shaping up for another big year, especially after ending 2024 with a couple of big purchases.
First, the company completed its acquisition of Micropac Industries on Dec. 30.
The all-cash transaction valued Micropac at approximately $57.3 million, taking into account Micropac’s net debt as of Aug. 24.
And in November, the company announced it had made its largest purchase since buying Flir in 2021 for $8 billion.
In an effort to bolster its aerospace and defense electronics business, Teledyne announced it has acquired select businessesin those areas from Excelitas Technologies Corp. for $710 million in cash.
According to the company, the transaction is anticipated to be completed in early 2025.
Teledyne will enter 2025 with a market cap of $21.6 billion as of Dec. 31 with shares closing the year at $464.13.
Argus Research rated Teledyne with a hold rating and a target price of $494 in 2025.
The reason is that the industrial sector as a whole is seeing some struggles.
According to the report, the sector was underperforming the market with a gain of 17.2%. It underperformed the market in 2023, with a gain of 16% compared to a gain of 24.2% for the S&P 500.
Zacks also has a netural rating but says the company’s “growth prospects remain solid, backed by the encouraging U.S. defense spending provisions and solid projections for commercial air travel.”
PROCORE
Carpinteria-based Procore Technologies has yet to turn a profit, but the company has continued to scale its operations and investors are waiting to see what will happen with the company in 2025.
The construction software company had a market cap of just over $11 billion after shares closed the year at $74.93 on Dec. 31.
Zacks currently has a hold rating on the stock.
According to 18 analysts, the average rating for Procore’s stock is Buy.
The 12-month stock price forecast is $83.06, which is an increase of 10.85% from the latest price.
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