As Wall Street banks cut share price targets across the board this earnings season, only a handful of companies have bucked the trend, an analysis by CNBC Pro reveals. Of the nearly 300 companies in the S & P 500 that have reported results this earnings season, more than two-thirds — 72% — have seen their median price targets slashed or left unchanged by analysts compared to a month ago. About 20 stocks emerged with a meaningfully higher price target of 5% or more compared to a month ago. Of these, only 13 still offer a potential upside of at least 5% to their current share price . United Airlines United ‘s executives were bullish in their latest earnings report on Oct. 18, saying appetite for travel wasn’t slowing despite high airfares and concerns about the economy. JPMorgan’s equity analysts appear to be equally positive toward the stock as they maintained their buy rating with an $81 price target for December 2023. That represents an 89% upside to the current share price of $42.66. “Our Overweight rating reflects the efforts of UAL’s Next strategy beginning to take hold as well as the early stages of a business and international travel demand recovery that should benefit UAL comparatively more than other leisure-focused airlines,” the Wall Street bank’s airline analyst Jamie Baker said in a note to clients after the company’s results. “Economic and fuel considerations can obviously interfere, and we’d rather model conservatively … particularly if the outcome continues to support upside equity potential,” he added. While United’s market value remains at half its pre-pandemic size, the stock has outperformed the broader market and is down only 3.6% this year. Schlumberger Schlumberger , the world’s largest oilfield services provider, beat Wall Street expectations on earnings for the previous quarter, perhaps unsurprisingly, as energy has been the only buoyant sector this year in the S & P 500. Shares of the company, which is rebranding itself as “SLB,” have risen by 72% this year and analysts expect the stock to continue its rally. The median price target for SLB represents a 13.5% upside potential, according to FactSet data. “The company exceeded our estimates for revenue, EBITDA margins, and reached its de-leveraging targets ahead of schedule,” said RBC Capital Markets analysts led by Keith Mackey in a note to clients on Nov. 1. “The strong operational performance increases our comfort in the next leg of growth, which we believe will first be driven by the International up-cycle and extended by oil & gas (and industrial) decarbonization and new energy opportunities.” CoStar Group The data and analytics provider for the commercial real-estate sector reported 11.6% growth in revenue, a 36.5% increase in net profit for the latest quarter compared to last year. CoStar beat expectations, with analysts at Truist and RBC raising their price target even further. Shares of the company have outperformed the broader market with a 2.73% positive return this year. In contrast, the internet and data services subsector and the real-estate sector have declined by 45.1% and 23.27% this year, respectively. “We continue to like CoStar for several reasons,” said JMP’s equity analysts. “It is well led, in our opinion, by Founder and CEO Andrew Florance, who has a track record of success in entering and capturing share in new markets.” Losers this season About 65% of companies that reported earnings in the past month have seen a cut to their median price target by equity analysts. Wall Street expects big reductions in the future growth potential at SVB Financial , a Silicon Valley-based lender, Meta Platforms , the parent company of Facebook, and Whirlpool , the household appliance maker, among others. Loews Corp was excluded from the analysis as price targets or estimates were unavailable during the analysis. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
