Stocks around the world have taken a beating this year, and major indexes on Wall Street remain deep in negative territory. Wall Street is coming off a tough month, with the Dow and S & P 500 notching their biggest monthly losses since March 2020. The Dow shed 8.8% in September, while the S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost 9.3% and 10.5%, respectively. The beginning of this week brought something of a relief rally which then snapped on Wednesday. Regardless, global and Wall Street indexes are still well in the red year to date. The MSCI World index and the S & P 500 are more than 20% down, while the Dow fell by about 17%. The Nasdaq Composite lost nearly 30%. That could present an opportunity for investors looking for quality stocks and upside in a volatile environment. The stocks in the table below are trading within 10% of their 52-week low, but have a “buy” rating from more than half the Wall Street analysts who cover them. The stocks have an average price target upside of 20% or more, and their earnings are forecast to grow by at least 10% this year. There were some big names in the screen, such as tech giant Microsoft and payments giant Mastercard . Microsoft generates much of its revenue from subscriptions from both consumers and businesses, which are seen as more resilient than other types of spending. Microsoft, like other tech stocks, tumbled this year, dropping about 25% year to date. However, analysts overwhelmingly (90%) gave it a “buy” rating, and an average price target with upside of 30%, according to FactSet. Booking Holdings was also on the list, with one of the highest projected earnings per share growth at about 140%. Online travel agency Agoda, a unit of Booking Holdings, said in late September that travel resumed quickly in Europe and the United States. Asian tourism is, however, expected to return to pre-pandemic levels more gradually, by 2024, according to Agoda. — CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Tanaya Macheel and Zavier Ong contributed to the report.
