
3 Top Stock Picks By Analysts (NVDA) (LLY) (TTD)
(About StockTargetAdvisor.com (STA Research): Is a Canadian investment research company specializing in advanced stock research and analysis. Our research team comprises of Financial Professionals).
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)
Current Price: $114.50
Price Target: $172.03
Projected Upside: 50.24%
Analyst Consensus: Strong Buy (35 analysts)
STA Stock Analysis
NVIDIA demonstrates strong financial and operational fundamentals. It has low debt, granting flexibility in uncertain market conditions, and it consistently ranks in the top quartile for returns on assets, equity, and capital, indicating efficient management. The company also maintains positive cash flow and free cash flow, showcasing strong financial health. With a large market capitalization, it enjoys stability and investor confidence.
The company's revenue and earnings growth have been superior to peers over the past five years, making it a top performer in its sector. NVIDIA also delivers high gross profit relative to assets, a key metric valued by long-term investors. Its high dividend yield adds further appeal, especially for income-focused investors.
Despite its strong fundamentals, NVIDIA is considered overvalued across multiple valuation metrics — including price-to-book, price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow, and price-to-free cash flow — suggesting that much of its growth potential may already be priced in. Additionally, the stock has shown high volatility and below-median total returns over the past five years, which may not suit risk-averse investors. Its dividend growth also lags behind sector peers.
NVIDIA is a fundamentally strong, well-managed company with impressive growth, profitability, and capital efficiency. However, its current valuation and volatility imply that while it's a quality business, investors should assess their risk tolerance and consider whether now is the right entry point.
2. Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY)
Current Price: $823.62
Price Target: $999.09
Projected Upside: 21.30%
Analyst Consensus: Strong Buy (11 analysts)
STA Stock Analysis
Eli Lilly & Company is fundamentally strong, with superior risk-adjusted returns, positive cash flow, and robust earnings and capital utilization. The company is highly regarded for its high market capitalization, positive free cash flow, and excellent return on assets and equity, placing it in the top quartile within its sector. Eli Lilly also provides high dividend returns, making it appealing to income-seeking investors.
However, there are concerns about its valuation. The stock is priced above sector medians in terms of price-to-earnings, price-to-book value, and price-to-cash-flow ratios, indicating potential overvaluation. Additionally, the company has underperformed its peers in total returns over the past five years and has shown low dividend growth. High volatility in returns is another risk for potential investors.
3. Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD)
Current Price: $54.09
Price Target: $101.15
Projected Upside: 87.00%
Analyst Consensus: Strong Buy (27 analysts)
STA Stock Analysis
Trade Desk demonstrates strong financial health, evidenced by positive cash flow and free cash flow over the last four quarters. The company also outperforms its peers in key metrics such as return on assets, return on equity, and return on invested capital, placing it in the top quartile. Additionally, it has shown superior earnings growth over the past five years and benefits from a high market capitalization, contributing to its stability.
However, the stock appears overvalued compared to its peers, trading at high price-to-book, price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow, and price-to-free cash flow ratios. The company's returns have been volatile, indicating higher risk, and its risk-adjusted returns are below the median for its sector, which may be a concern for risk-conscious investors. Moreover, Trade Desk has underperformed in terms of dividend returns, which might make it less attractive to income-focused investors.
While The Trade Desk has strong growth potential, its high valuation and volatility suggest that investors should be cautious, particularly if seeking stability or income.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Globe and Mail
36 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
The Lucid-Uber Robotaxi Deal: How Nvidia Will Also Benefit
Key Points Starting next year, Uber plans to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid electric SUVs equipped with the Nuro Driver autonomous system in over a dozen global cities. Nuro's Nuro Driver is a Level 4 self-driving system trained on and powered by Nvidia's artificial intelligence (AI) technology. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › On Thursday, shares of Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID), a Silicon Valley-based electric vehicle (EV) maker, soared more than 36% following the announcement of a premium robotaxi service deal with ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER). My first thought upon seeing the news was "Yet another deal that will benefit Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA)!" The artificial intelligence (AI) tech leader wasn't mentioned in the press release, but I knew of the Nvidia connection. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » First, let's look at the Lucid-Uber deal and then see how Nvidia is poised to benefit. The Uber-Lucid-Nuro partnership The deal involves Uber procuring Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro Driver, a Level 4 self-driving system, to use in a global premium robotaxi service developed exclusively for the Uber ride-hailing platform. Moreover, Uber plans to make "multi-hundred-million-dollar investments" in both Lucid and Nuro, an autonomous driving technology start-up also based in Silicon Valley. More specifically, Uber "aims to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid vehicles equipped with the Nuro Driver over six years in dozens of markets around the world." Its first launch will be in a major U.S. city and is expected to occur later next year. The first robotaxi prototype is already operating autonomously on Nuro's closed-course testing facility in Las Vegas. Nuro is a venture-backed start-up, which in April raised $106 million in a Series E funding round, bringing its valuation to $6 billion. Last year, the company shifted its main focus from developing delivery robots to licensing autonomous driving technology. Of course, this deal is great news for Lucid and Nuro, especially given the big injection of cash they'll receive from Uber. Lucid's vehicles -- the Air sedan and the new Gravity SUV – get high marks for performance and comfort, and sport industry-leading ranges. But it's notoriously difficult for vehicle start-ups to succeed because automakers have extremely high fixed-costs, so liquidity is always a big concern. At the end of the first quarter of 2025, Lucid had cash and short-term investments of $3.61 billion, and its free cash flow for the quarter was negative $589.9 million, which equates to an annual cash-burn rate of $2.36 billion. At its current cash-burn rate, Lucid's cash and short-term investments would last about 1.5 years. Why Nvidia is poised to benefit from the Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi deal Uber, Lucid, and Nuro all have some type of driverless vehicle-related partnership with Nvidia, which isn't surprising as along with enabling the overall AI revolution, Nvidia's AI tech is a major enabler of the AI-powered driverless vehicle revolution. But it's the Nuro-Nvidia partnership that's relevant to Nvidia benefiting from the Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi deal. Lucid EVs will be equipped with the Nuro Driver Level 4 autonomy system, according to the deal's press release. Nuro is using Nvidia's AI tech to power this system, as it announced at Nvidia's annual GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in March 2024. More specifically, the "Nuro Driver is built on NVIDIA's end-to-end safety architecture, which includes NVIDIA GPUs [graphics processing units] for AI training in the cloud and an automotive-grade NVIDIA DRIVE Thor computer running the NVIDIA DriveOS operating system inside the vehicle," according to an Nvidia blog. In other words, Nuro is using Nvidia's AI tech for both AI training of its self-driving vehicle system and AI inferencing, since Nvidia's DRIVE Thor, a supercomputer, is the "brains" inside the vehicle. So, not only does Nuro use Nvidia's data center AI products, which are available via all of the major cloud computing services, but the icing on top is that it must buy an Nvidia DRIVE Thor supercomputer for each vehicle that it equips with its Nuro Driver system. So, it seems safe to assume that every Lucid vehicle that Uber acquires for its new robotaxi service will have an Nvidia DRIVE Thor supercomputer inside it. That Uber and Lucid also have various individual partnerships with Nvidia provides further support for this assumption. For some context, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) uses Nvidia's AI tech for training its self-driving vehicle system, called FSD (Supervised), with FSD standing for full self-driving. However, it does not use an Nvidia DRIVE system inside its vehicles. Tesla uses its internally developed tech -- or "AI chip" -- inside its vehicles. Last month, Tesla had a limited launch of its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. The Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi service is poised to compete with services operated by Tesla and Alphabet 's Waymo, which is currently the leader in the U.S. robotaxi space. Given Uber's ride-hailing service scale and considerable financial resources (since last year, its trailing-12-month free cash flow has exceeded that of Tesla), the newly planned premium robotaxi service could be a big winner. And the more successful the new Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi service is, the more money Nvidia should make. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,056,790!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025


Calgary Herald
an hour ago
- Calgary Herald
Trump could crush Canada's softwood exports. Here's how a new crisis could play out
Article content WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade relationship has dealt with ups and downs, disputes and resolutions, for decades. Anxiety for Canadian exporters is reaching a fever pitch again as the U.S. threatens to more than double softwood lumber duties and add even steeper tariffs under a national security investigation. Article content Canadian foresters, mills, and governments that enjoy taxes, economic spinoffs and stumpage fees from Crown land will feel the pain if they lose too much access to the massive U.S. market. But larger producers have been preparing for just this kind of contingency and have cleverly hedged their bets, building capacity in the U.S., where they can sell as much as they want to Americans, tariff-free. Article content Article content Article content Canadian firms will soon receive word from the U.S. Commerce Department's Sixth Administrative Review (AR6) of U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports, with the rate expected to jump from around 14 per cent to roughly 34 per cent. For Canfor, the Vancouver-based lumber giant selected as a mandatory respondent in the AR6 review, it will be even worse. Its duties are calculated based on its own shipments and prices, not an industry average, like it is for other companies. Article content Article content Then there's the threat of tariffs from President Donald Trump's ongoing national security investigation of Canadian lumber imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which he ordered in March and is due late this year. Currently, lumber shipments are exempted from Trump's baseline tariffs, because they're covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal (USMCA), but that could soon change based on the findings of the 232 probe. Article content Article content National Post breaks down the position of the two countries, what the impacts could be, and how Canadian producers are trying to mitigate the potential damage of punitive trade barriers. Article content Article content What American producers want Article content The U.S. Lumber Coalition is playing for keeps. It backs higher anti-dumping duties and tariffs for what it sees as a subsidized domestic industry. It claims Canadian producers don't pay market rates for stumpage because their forests are publicly owned and provincial governments set the stumpage rates, while U.S. producers face higher market rates. But it doesn't stop there: the U.S. coalition also wants to see Canada's U.S. market share significantly chopped. Article content Miller isn't shy about the goals: 'A countrywide quota with no exemptions and no carveouts, and a single-digit market share' for Canadian lumber. Article content Today, Canada has a 25 per cent market share, with exports of 12 billion feet of softwood lumber to the U.S. each year, according to the coalition. Softwood lumber accounts for about 7.5 per cent of Canadian exports; in 2023, the U.S. was the destination for 68 per cent of those forestry products. The whole industry is worth about $33.4 billion in sales annually and employs more than 200,000 workers across Canada, according to a report this year from RBC.


Vancouver Sun
2 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
Trump could crush Canada's softwood exports. Here's how a new crisis could play out
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade relationship has dealt with ups and downs, disputes and resolutions, for decades . Anxiety for Canadian exporters is reaching a fever pitch again as the U.S. threatens to more than double softwood lumber duties and add even steeper tariffs under a national security investigation. Canadian foresters, mills, and governments that enjoy taxes, economic spinoffs and stumpage fees from Crown land will feel the pain if they lose too much access to the massive U.S. market. But larger producers have been preparing for just this kind of contingency and have cleverly hedged their bets, building capacity in the U.S., where they can sell as much as they want to Americans, tariff-free. Canadian firms will soon receive word from the U.S. Commerce Department's Sixth Administrative Review (AR6) of U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports, with the rate expected to jump from around 14 per cent to roughly 34 per cent. For Canfor, the Vancouver-based lumber giant selected as a mandatory respondent in the AR6 review, it will be even worse. Its duties are calculated based on its own shipments and prices, not an industry average, like it is for other companies. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'Canfor's rate will be 45 per cent, plus or minus a per cent,' said Andrew Miller, chairman of Oregon-based Stimson Lumber and chair of the U.S. Lumber Coalition. 'So they'll get a kick in the teeth from the next round of duties.' Then there's the threat of tariffs from President Donald Trump's ongoing national security investigation of Canadian lumber imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act , which he ordered in March and is due late this year. Currently, lumber shipments are exempted from Trump's baseline tariffs, because they're covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal (USMCA), but that could soon change based on the findings of the 232 probe. National Post breaks down the position of the two countries, what the impacts could be, and how Canadian producers are trying to mitigate the potential damage of punitive trade barriers. The U.S. Lumber Coalition is playing for keeps. It backs higher anti-dumping duties and tariffs for what it sees as a subsidized domestic industry. It claims Canadian producers don't pay market rates for stumpage because their forests are publicly owned and provincial governments set the stumpage rates, while U.S. producers face higher market rates. But it doesn't stop there: the U.S. coalition also wants to see Canada's U.S. market share significantly chopped. Miller isn't shy about the goals: 'A countrywide quota with no exemptions and no carveouts, and a single-digit market share' for Canadian lumber. Today, Canada has a 25 per cent market share, with exports of 12 billion feet of softwood lumber to the U.S. each year, according to the coalition. Softwood lumber accounts for about 7.5 per cent of Canadian exports; in 2023, the U.S. was the destination for 68 per cent of those forestry products . The whole industry is worth about $33.4 billion in sales annually and employs more than 200,000 workers across Canada, according to a report this year from RBC. If Trump stacked a 20 per cent tariff on top of the existing duties, driving down some of Canada's approximately 12 billion board feet of annual softwood exports to the U.S., Miller believes the U.S. industry could almost immediately replace at least two billion feet worth through quick operational changes. Incremental mill upgrades over three years could then add another three to four billion feet of production, he said. 'I really believe that within three years we would have replaced, through U.S. production of lumber, about half of what Canada currently exports to the U.S.,' he said, nodding to Trump's comments earlier this year about the U.S. not needing any Canadian lumber . The coalition is pushing for a tariff rate from the Section 232 investigation that starts at 15 to 20 per cent and goes higher from there. That, Miller explained, will incentivize U.S. sawmill owners struggling with thin margins to hire more people and invest in upgrades, bolstering U.S. production. This week, provincial leaders offered ways to settle the dispute. B.C. Premier David Eby said Canada is willing to consider a quota on exports to the U.S. for the first time , and New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt also said quotas are on the table as an option for trade negotiations. Miller, head of the American coalition, was far from impressed by Eby's comments. A quota might stabilize the market and secure jobs for Canadian workers, he said, but 'at whose expense?' His answer: 'U.S. mill workers.' '(Eby) is not serious about a settlement that is satisfactory to the coalition. He is floating a political trial balloon designed to derail the implementation of the AR6,' he said. Kurt Niquidet, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council, refused to comment on what his organization prefers by way of a solution. He said options included quotas, tariffs, or a hybrid approach. But he was clear that the industry wants Ottawa to resolve things with the U.S. quickly. 'We think that the federal government should be making this issue a priority and looking for a negotiated settlement,' he said. Niquidet argues that the U.S. already has 'housing affordability issues' and taxing or restricting Canadian lumber could only make things worse. 'If the trade measures are too punitive, it just serves to drive up the prices and the costs of lumber in the U.S.,' he said. That's why the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the trade association based in Washington, has been leading the charge to fight the duties and potential tariffs. It has repeatedly warned the White House that tariffs would only '(slow) down the domestic residential construction industry' at a time when Trump has vowed to address the country's 'severe housing shortage and affordability crisis.' In recent years, tariffs have increased the average home price by nearly US$11,000 because of recent tariffs, according to the April 2025 NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, when the average home sticker price is just north of US$400,000. There are also about 3.5 million Americans who work in the residential housing sector, and millions more working in commercial and industrial construction. The NAHB has actively shared its concerns as part of the Section 232 investigation process and expressed concern that the U.S. lumber supply cannot meet the needed demand on its own anytime soon. Niquidet agrees. He said claims by the U.S. industry and the president that American producers can make up for lost Canadian supply are 'just not true.' The twist in all this is that a growing number of producers in the U.S. are actually Canadian-owned. Vancouver-based West Fraser started buying and investing in U.S. sawmills back in the early 2000s to diversify its assets and shore up supplies threatened in Canada by mountain pine beetles and wildfires. Others — including Canfor, Resolute and Interfor (whose U.S. operations are bigger than its Canadian ones) — followed suit in part to avoid trade barriers, the trend only accelerating in Trump's first term, when he imposed 20 per cent tariffs on Canadian softwood exports. Today, estimates are that Canadian lumber firms control as much 40 per cent of softwood lumber production capacity in the American South. In most cases, they've kept local families and employees in place, seamlessly taking over and often modernizing while keeping afloat many sawmills that might've otherwise gone under. When asked about the paradox of Canadian firms buying up U.S. sawmills, Miller doesn't have any concerns. 'A dollar invested in a U.S. sawmill is a dollar invested in a U.S. sawmill employing U.S. citizens operating that sawmill, cutting trees and shipping them,' he said. 'We don't care who operates them. You know, it's a free market.' (However, Miller said if foreign owners ever wanted to join the U.S. Lumber Coalition, which advocates against imports, it wouldn't allow them to.) The U.S. president has also repeatedly told foreign manufacturers that if they want to escape punitive trade measures, they should invest on U.S. soil and help ramp up domestic American production. '(Trump would) take that as a big victory,' Miller said of the lumber takeovers by Canadians. 'That's what he wants,' National Post tmoran@ Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .