5 of the Best Stocks to Buy Now

The S&P 500 passed the 5,000 mark a couple months ago and has shown few signs of slowing down. Entering April, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is nearing the 40,000 threshold for the first time and the tech-heavy Nasdaq seemingly hits new highs almost every week.

For value investors, this market might seem like a lost cause, at least when it comes to putting new money to work. Surprisingly enough, there are still some high-quality stocks out there that are currently on sale. All five of the following stocks to buy for April 2024 saw their share prices fall at least 10% over the past month, creating strong relative valuation situations compared to the overall stock market.

Here are five leading stocks to buy now:

There are few blue-chip stocks selling at or near 52-week lows right now, especially among U.S. companies. However, Nike finds itself in that situation heading into spring. Nike recently surprised investors with an underwhelming earnings report as certain international markets remain weak. A terrible earnings report from leisure apparel rival Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) sent further shocks through the industry.

To be clear, Nike is facing some real challenges. It has potentially leaned too far into its direct-to-consumer model and will need to rekindle relationships with some key wholesale partners. In addition, Nike is committed to upping its level of innovation to have the best products out in the marketplace. In the longer term, however, investors should be confident that Nike’s unparalleled brand and marketing partnerships will get it back to its winning ways in due time. Shares now trade for 24 times forward earnings and pay a 1.6% dividend yield.

Zoetis is the world’s largest specialized animal health company. In addition to offering standard therapies and treatments for pets and livestock, Zoetis has gotten into more niche offerings such as aquaculture and diagnostic testing equipment for pets. Investors may have overlooked animal health care companies historically, as they were often part of broader pharmaceutical companies. But with firms like Zoetis being independent nowadays, analysts have come to appreciate the strong pricing power that can be made by selling to veterinarians and pet owners directly. The pandemic really highlighted this element, as people spent more time and money on their pets than ever before.

That said, Zoetis recently released a soft earnings report and shares have dipped about 15% from prior levels. This means the stock is roughly flat over the past 12 months, giving folks a second chance to buy into this leading animal care company.

Headquartered in Minnesota, Xcel is one of America’s larger publicly traded power utilities with about $15 billion in annual revenues. Like many utilities stocks, Xcel has underperformed over the past year due to rising interest rates and investors’ current aversion to less glamorous companies in defensive industries. However, the selling in Xcel Energy picked up speed last month due to worries about liabilities related to wildfires in Texas.

With the most recent dip, XEL stock is now down more than 15% over the past 12 months. However, multiple bank analysts upgraded XEL stock earlier in March after the Texas wildfires were contained and liability estimates were curtailed. Wolfe Research, for example, suggested that Xcel’s wildfire liability is likely to be less than the company’s insurance coverage for such events. With the decline in the share price, XEL stock now goes for just 15 times forward earnings and offers a 4.1% dividend yield. 

Snowflake is a cloud-native data management and warehousing company. Its innovation was to secure data with off-premise solutions that would make it much easier for companies to manage their workflows. This has become increasingly vital thanks to both remote work models along with the addition of increasingly complex software-as-a-service solutions built on top of cloud-hosted data. Snowflake has, essentially, made itself a key piece of infrastructure for a growing number of Fortune 500 companies.

Snowflake has long been a popular growth stock, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, BRK.B) was among the early investors in the company. Snowflake’s rising trajectory was recently interrupted when CEO Frank Slootman announced his retirement. Slootman is a highly respected figure, and his departure set off shockwaves for investors. That said, with the stock down 30% in the month following that news, the market has more than priced in the leadership change and set up a serious buying opportunity for a firm where analysts see greater than 20% revenue growth in both 2024 and 2025.

EPAM Systems is a Pennsylvania-based information technology firm that pioneered a leading outsourcing model for IT services. The company has been incredibly successful over the past decade, with shares rising more than 700% since 2014. However, the company’s stock still finds itself far below its 2021 peak. What gives?

For one, IT budget growth slowed once the immediate demand push from the pandemic-driven e-commerce and teleworking boom subsided. For another, EPAM had a large portion of its employee base in Russia and Ukraine, which led to a massive disruption in 2022 when geopolitical conflict erupted in that region. Regardless, EPAM has straightened out its labor situation and has returned to projected top-line revenue growth for 2024. In March, EPAM also announced an acquisition in Latin America, which will further diversify its presence away from Eastern Europe.

All this is to say that EPAM’s growth engine is revving back up and it’s only a matter of time until the share price follows suit. You can even see Wall Street starting to acknowledge this, with revenue growth expected to rapidly accelerate from 3% in 2024 to 14% in 2025.