The Stocks Wall Street Loves

Despite all of Wall Street's conflict and contention, a fortunate few companies enjoy unanimous support among professional analysts. If the market's movers and shakers all believe these companies will beat the long-term averages, well, surely they will -- right?

Not so fast! With help from the 180,000 members of Motley Fool CAPS, we'll see whether these highflying favorites deserve analysts' unwavering support.

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.

As you can see, there's a wide range of results, so just because Wall Street loves ' em doesn't mean you have to. Use the list as a jumping-off place for your own research.

Do you hear what I hear?
For retailers, the week following Christmas can be just as much a profitable proposition as those leading up to the holiday. Apparently it's also the case with audio-chip specialist Cirrus Logic, which reported stronger-than-expected preliminary fiscal third-quarter results yesterday as a result of sales during the last few weeks of the quarter that ended Dec. 31.

Buying into Cirrus Logic is like buying Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), since the chipmaker derives some 59% of its revenues through the consumer-products giant. Like TriQuint Semiconductor and OmniVision Technologies, Cirrus will live and die by how that relationship plays out and whether its audio chips continue to be part and parcel of the Apple product line.

Cirrus expects to report $122 million in quarterly revenues when it releases full results later this month, well ahead of the $102 million to $108 million it previously expected. It also expects fourth-quarter revenues to come in 15% higher than they did last year.

The relationship with Apple was the reason CAPS member aacole believed Cirrus would outperform the market, but tell us in the comments section below or on the Cirrus Logic CAPS page whether you think it's too risky to be so reliant upon one customer. Add the chipmaker to your watchlist to see how if it eventually gets tuned out as a result.

A prescription for growth
Remember back when everyone was fretting Questcor Pharmaceuticals wasn't going to be able to sell as much of its multiple sclerosis treatment Acthar as previously thought because of health-care reform? Despite fears early on that changes to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement policies would impede prescription growth, fourth-quarter shipments for the doubled from the year-ago period, while tripling the number of paid prescriptions.

Nor is Questcor looking back at competition like Pfizer, which makes Solu-Medrol to treat MS. The number of indications the drug can be prescribed for has widened, and it has seen prescriptions for treating kidney conditions and infantile spasms soar. Indeed, Questcor believes the kidney market, where Acthar is used to treat nephrotic syndrome, will be the next growth market as it has begun a big marketing push.

That could be why 88% of the CAPS All-Stars rating the pharmaceutical believe it will go one to beat the Street. Add Questcor to the Fool's free portfolio tracker to see whether it can continue this torrid growth pace, and see what others are saying by heading over to the Questcor Pharmaceuticals CAPS page.

Agree to disagree
Tell us whether these stocks deserve to have Wall Street marching lockstep, but then check out The Motley Fool's new free report that highlights a company breaking all the rules on its way to huge, multiple-bagger gains. The report is free, so get a copy today!