Picking the best stocks is like visiting an apple orchard in the fall. Come at the right time and you’ll find the finest fruit still hanging on the trees, making it easy to fill your basket. Just as you use ladders and hooks to reach the highest branches in an orchard, in the stock market you can rely on tools like Smart result to identify the best opportunities.
The Smart result is an AI-powered stock ranker powered by TipRanks. It uses natural language algorithms to sift through all publicly traded stocks – and score them against a set of factors that are known indicators of future outperformance. Each stock’s ratings are reduced to a single score, based on an intuitive scale of 1 to 10, with a ‘Perfect 10’ indicating stocks that deserve a closer look.
So, let’s open up the TipRanks database and take a look at two high-performing stocks in 2025. Both are ‘Perfect 10’, meaning each has the highest possible Smart Score; let’s find out what else makes them attractive portfolio additions for the new year.
Nutanix(NTNX)
We’ll start in the world of cloud computing, where our first ‘Perfect 10’ stock, Nutanix, has assembled a range of products designed to address the unique challenges presented by cloud software and database management. Founded in 2009, Nutanix offers its customers a cloud platform and set of tools that combine the benefits of public and private cloud architectures. The company’s products provide solutions for such needs as storage and network requirements, disaster recovery, cloud security and virtual networking. Customers can automate their operations and accelerate service delivery while reducing overhead, and can also consolidate storage for structured and unstructured data.
That’s a serious list of features, and it’s hardly a complete list. Nutanix lives up to its promise of quality service, and that delivery, plus product range, has attracted a premium business customer base, including names like Home Depot, AAA and Seven Eleven. In total, the company has more than 25,000 customers.
Just last November, Nutanix announced an important enhancement to its platform, with the addition of AI infrastructure. The upgrade brings generative AI technology to the public cloud, giving users access to a unified genAI experience that can accelerate workloads in a hybrid multicloud environment.
On the financial side, Nutanix recently reported results for its fiscal 1Q25 (October quarter) and beat both top and bottom line forecasts. The company’s revenue of $591 million was up 15.6% year over year and was $18.79 million better than expected; Non-GAAP earnings of $0.42 per share were 10 cents per share better than expected. In two other important metrics, the company reported annualized recurring revenue, ARR, of $1.97 billion for the fiscal first quarter, up 18% y/y, along with quarterly free cash flow of $151.9 million, which 14.6% more compared to the fiscal 1st quarter of 24.
UBS analyst Jeff Hickey is clearly on the side of this stock and cites several reasons to support his bullish view: “1.) opportunity to capture $400M of the ~$5B opportunity from the termination of the VMware acquisition, supporting our ARR of 3 .1 billion estimate – above the Street’s $3.0 billion in FY27. 2.) Nutanix’s leadership in hyperconverged infrastructure software – a segment expected to maintain double-digit growth over the next few years, and 3.) the view that while public cloud infrastructure names continue to gain overall share of IT budgets, for him- investments in spatial data centers will not be zero – benefiting Nutanix as the company increasingly supports hybrid/multi-cloud deployments.”
Hickey gives the stock a Buy rating and complements this with a $81 price target that suggests a 30% upside potential for the coming year. (To view Hickey’s record, click here)
NTNX has been given a consensus Strong Buy rating, based on 10 Wall Street reviews that include 8 Buys and 2 Holds. The stock is priced at $62.41 and its average target price of $81.90 indicates a 31% upside potential over the next 12 months. (See NTNX stock forecast)
A progressive corporation(PGR)
For the second stock on our list, we’ll look at an insurance company that earned a ‘Perfect 10’ according to the Smart Score. Progressive is an industry giant – in fact, its market capitalization of $142.7 billion makes it the second largest insurer in the world. The company dates back to 1937, and today it is one of the largest car insurers on the American market. As part of its car insurance services, the company also offers policies for motorcycles, caravans, trailers, boats and passenger and commercial vehicles. Customers can also shop Progressive for home, renter and life insurance, as well as policies to cover ID theft, jewelry, dental and vision care and even special events. The company offers savings for customers who bundle their policies together, and boasts more than 37 million customers.
Progressive reports monthly financial results, and its latest report is for November 2024. In that month, the company recorded net premiums worth $5.56 billion, up 18% from November 2023, and brought in net earned premiums worth 6.04 billion dollars, for 19% annual profit. During the month, the company achieved a net income of slightly more than one billion dollars, which is 48% more compared to the previous November.
When it comes to returns for investors, Progressive stock has outperformed the broader market over the past 12 months. During that time, PGR shares have gained 48%, easily outpacing the 24% gain seen in the S&P 500 over the same period.
This stock has caught the attention of Raymond James analyst Charles Peters, who sees plenty of reason to be bullish here. The 5-star analyst writes: “The company’s long-term track record of growth and value creation makes it a key holding for large growth investors. We believe the near-term outlook includes industry-leading PIF growth and better-than-target combined ratios. We expect the company to produce a combination of double-digit NPW and NII growth, partially offset by some minor deterioration in underlying combined ratios through 2026. We expect PGR to rank first among large caps in our 2025 and 2026 annual ROBE table, which includes all insurance companies that is publicly traded.”
Peters further gives an Outperform (i.e. Buy) rating on the stock, with a price target of $305 implying a 25% gain over a one-year horizon. (To see Peters’ record, click here)
In total, the 16 recent analyst views on Progressive’s stock boil down to 12 buys and 5 holds, all for a consensus rating of moderate buy. The stock is priced at $243.59, and its average price target of $282.82 suggests a 16% upside this year. (See PGR stock forecast)
To find good ideas for trading stocks at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ The best stocks to buya tool that brings together all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of prominent analysts. The content is intended for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
