Wall Street’s bearish price targets for the stocks in this article signal serious concerns. Such forecasts are uncommon in an industry where maintaining cordial corporate relationships often trumps delivering the hard truth.
Accurately determining a company’s long-term prospects isn’t easy, especially when sentiment is weak. That’s where StockStory comes in - to help you find attractive investment candidates backed by unbiased research. That said, here is one stock poised to prove Wall Street wrong and two where the outlook is warranted.
Two Stocks to Sell:
Lumen (LUMN)
Consensus Price Target: $7.78 (-4.6% implied return)
With approximately 350,000 route miles of fiber optic cable spanning North America and the Asia Pacific, Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) operates a vast fiber optic network that provides communications, cloud connectivity, security, and IT solutions to businesses and consumers.
Why Do We Avoid LUMN?
- Sales tumbled by 9.5% annually over the last five years, showing market trends are working against its favor during this cycle
- Free cash flow margin shrank by 6.6 percentage points over the last five years, suggesting the company is consuming more capital to stay competitive
- Eroding returns on capital from an already low base indicate that management’s recent investments are destroying value
Lumen is trading at $8.16 per share, or 7.1x forward EV-to-EBITDA. Dive into our free research report to see why there are better opportunities than LUMN.
OneMain (OMF)
Consensus Price Target: $73.47 (3.3% implied return)
Dating back to 1912 and formerly known as Springleaf, OneMain Holdings (NYSE: OMF) provides personal loans, auto financing, and credit cards to nonprime consumers who have limited access to traditional banking services.
Why Does OMF Give Us Pause?
- Annual revenue growth of 4.3% over the last five years was below our standards for the financials sector
- Earnings growth over the last five years fell short of the peer group average as its EPS only increased by 3.4% annually
- Debt-to-equity ratio of 6.6× is concerningly high, indicating excessive leverage that could limit financial flexibility
OneMain’s stock price of $71.13 implies a valuation ratio of 9.4x forward P/E. To fully understand why you should be careful with OMF, check out our full research report (it’s free).
One Stock to Watch:
Genpact (G)
Consensus Price Target: $50.36 (4.9% implied return)
Originally spun off from General Electric in 2005 to provide business process services, Genpact (NYSE: G) is a global professional services firm that helps businesses transform their operations through digital technology, AI, and data analytics solutions.
Why Are We Positive On G?
- Strong free cash flow margin of 11.6% enables it to reinvest or return capital consistently
- Industry-leading 18.2% return on capital demonstrates management’s skill in finding high-return investments, and its rising returns show it’s making even more lucrative bets
- Rising returns on capital show management is finding more attractive investment opportunities
At $48.02 per share, Genpact trades at 12.4x forward P/E. Is now the right time to buy? Find out in our full research report, it’s free.
High-Quality Stocks for All Market Conditions
Your portfolio can’t afford to be based on yesterday’s story. The risk in a handful of heavily crowded stocks is rising daily.
The names generating the next wave of massive growth are right here in our Top 5 Growth Stocks for this month. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 244% over the last five years (as of June 30, 2025).
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Comfort Systems (+782% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
