Look out below. For months on end, bears have been running loose through the streets of lower Manhattan. They're swinging great big bloody paws down on the price of any stock that tries to rise, and there isn't much that anyone can do about it.
A bear market may be pushing down all your favorite stocks right now but that doesn't mean they'll never recover. In fact, analysts who follow these two stocks think their prices could soar 64.1% to 86.1% higher once the rest of the stock market considers the opportunities in front of their underlying businesses.
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1. Moderna
Shares of Moderna (MRNA -2.45%) got way ahead of themselves when the biopharmaceutical company's COVID-19 vaccine was relatively new. Unfortunately, the stock has collapsed by around 75% from the peak it reached in 2021.
Moderna briefly had one of the highest market values in the entire biopharmaceutical industry. Now that its market cap has receded to around $48 billion, Wall Street analysts think it can outperform. The average price target on this stock represents an 86.1% premium at the moment.
Sales of Spikevax, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine slid from $5.9 billion in the first quarter of 2022 to $4.5 billion during the second. We could see coronavirus vaccine sales stabilize in the last half of the year. In August, the FDA authorized Moderna's omicron-targeting booster shot for emergency use.
In addition to COVID-vaccine revenue, Moderna has a chance to launch additional products over the next couple of years. For example, the company has a cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine in late clinical-stage testing that could be a very big deal. CMV is a widely prevalent form of herpesvirus that causes severe problems for immunocompromised people everywhere. There aren't any available vaccines to protect against CMV infections. If Moderna's becomes the first it could generate billions in annual revenue.
2. Pubmatic
Pubmatic (PUBM -2.27%) operates a sell-side platform for publishers and application developers that want to maximize the monetization of their online content. The stock soared in 2021, but it's since fallen around 58% from its all-time high.
Shares of Pubmatic have been under pressure lately because investors are worried that a global economic slowdown will limit demand for advertising across the board. Analysts on Wall Street aren't nearly as concerned. The consensus price target on Pubmatic right now suggests a 64.1% gain could be around the corner.
Analysts aren't too worried about a global economic slowdown pinching Pubmatic's ability to grow because the company's share of the digital advertising business is currently small and rising rapidly. At the end of 2021, the company thinks it had just 3% to 4% of the market for programmatic advertising.
Pubmatic owns a cloud-based platform that is built from the ground up to handle every imaginable digital ad format, including connected television (CTV). This June, the company's platform processed 409 billion ad impressions per day and video-related ads are driving growth. CVT revenue in the second quarter soared 150% year over year.
Investors worried a potential recession will lower overall demand for advertising will be glad to know that Pubmatic's clients keep coming back for more. The company posted a 130% net-dollar retention rate for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2022.
It's easy to see why Pubmatic is pulling market share away from the digital advertising industry's largest players. Google and Facebook are losing ground to companies like Pubmatic because they operate what industry experts refer to as walled gardens. Instead of partnering with either publishers or advertisers, Facebook and Google are active on both sides of the advertising equation. With a better operating model than its enormous competitors, Pubmatic's business, and its stock price could rise dramatically once the present fear of recession gives way to enthusiasm for a subsequent recovery period.
