7 Large-Cap Stocks Poised for Strong, Steady Gains in 2025

With a gain of over 16% in 2024 (as of December 26), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) will end the year as a laggard to the S&P 500. However, Microsoft is a behemoth among publicly traded stocks, with a $3.2 trillion market cap. And the company’s business touches on multiple areas of the technology sector including cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). 

A key story for Microsoft in 2025 will be its success in weaning away from OpenAI’s technology. The company’s plan, as detailed by Reuters, includes integrating proprietary and third-party AI models into its Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is closing in on 10 million paid users as of this writing. 

And unlike many technology stocks, Microsoft still has a decent valuation. The company’s forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio sits at 33.8x, and the company’s return on equity (ROE) is 34.5%, which is a slight premium to other technology stocks but well-valued compared to other names in the sector. Analysts give MSFT stock a consensus price target of $509.90, which offers investors 16% upside, not including the company’s dividend, which has increased for 23 consecutive years. 

Another mega-cap name that investors can go back to the well with is NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA). The company recently launched its Blackwell chip and announced a robust backlog for the chips, which will propel revenue and earnings growth throughout 2025. 

The challenge for NVIDIA in 2025 is competition from other companies, such as Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD). Customers are looking for alternatives to NVDA, and AMD appears to be in a position to be a worthy competitor. However, NVIDIA still has a lead with Blackwell, and it will take some time to whittle down the company’s 80+% market share.  

That’s why NVDA still looks like a stock to buy even with a premium valuation, including a forward P/E ratio of over 50x earnings. The company also has an extreme 114% ROE.   

Should investors expect another year of 162% stock price growth? No, but there’s no reason to believe that NVIDIA won’t be able to match or exceed the performance of the S&P 500 in 2025.  

Another high-flying technology stock from 2024 that is likely to deliver an encore performance is ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW). You do have to look past a forward P/E ratio of 156, but there are reasons to do so. 

First, ServiceNow is a software company at a time when the AI revolution is beginning to transition from hardware companies (e.g. NVIDIA) to software – which will determine how companies can monetize AI.  

The challenge for ServiceNow will come down to the company’s ability to deliver outsized growth in 2025. At its December 24, 2024 price, NOW stock looks to be fairly priced. In fact, the consensus price target shows a 4% downside in the next 12 months. However, in December alone, at least two analysts have raised their price targets to around $1,200 suggesting higher upside.  

And the wild card in the NOW stock forecast could be a stock split, which analysts see as more likely with the stock trading at over $1,000 per share.  

Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is not usually a growth stock. However, with a 76% increase in its stock price in the last 12 months, WMT stock has been one of the strongest performers in any sector, let alone the maligned retail sector, with retail spending up just 3.7% in 2024. 

The reason is that Walmart’s investments in e-commerce and AI are coming together to meet the current moment. That moment includes value-conscious consumers looking to make their dollars stretch further for staple items. At the same time, Walmart is seeing revenue growth from more affluent consumers who are rediscovering Walmart as a place for value in their discretionary purchases. 

No matter what happens in the economy in 2025, shopping habits tend to take a long time to break. That bodes well for another robust year for WMT stock. Analysts are raising their price targets on the stock, and investors can also look forward to a dividend increase in February 2025.  

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) lagged the market for much of the year. But Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk’s “unique” relationship with president elect Donald Trump has sent TSLA stock soaring on expectations that government policy will be favorable to the company’s business, particularly as it looks to make strides in autonomous driving.  

That supports the long-standing narrative of Tesla bulls that focuses on the idea that Tesla shouldn’t be thought of as just another automaker. For example, Tesla is rapidly becoming a leader in energy storage which is now a key driver of the company’s growth. 

When investors take that view, the price of the stock will be less dependent on any softness in the company’s electric vehicle (EV) delivery numbers, which is always a trigger for retail investors.  

However, another trigger for those investors is the company’s forward P/E of 228x which suggests that much of next year’s growth is fully priced in. Even analysts who are raising their price targets for TSLA stock seem to agree that the stock may be fully valued. 

The point is that Tesla will continue to be a polarizing stock. But with a total return of over 1,500% in the last five years, there’s little doubt that it will be one of the best-performing growth stocks to own in 2025. 

Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) has been another stock that is rocketing higher on the coattails of Donald Trump’s election. The story here is cryptocurrency and specifically, Bitcoin. The incoming administration is pledging to be a crypto-friendly administration. Granted, that’s a low bar to climb over, but the possibility of a national Bitcoin reserve has many cryptocurrency enthusiasts giddy and is creating FOMO (fear of missing out) among many investors who have been on the sideline. 

That’s where Coinbase can help. It’s the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Owning stock in the company doesn’t mean an investor has to own any specific crypto token but can ride the current tailwinds. 

Of all the stocks on this list, Coinbase presents investors with the most binary risk-reward scenario. If Bitcoin performs as many bulls expect, 2025 will be a blockbuster year. However, if the economy weakens, it could cause some selling in Bitcoin which would be a drag on crypto-adjacent stocks like COIN.  

The energy sector, and oil stocks specifically, should benefit from the Trump administration’s intention to expand the amount of drilling in the United States, which is already at record levels. Part of that will include easing regulations that will allow for more permits.  

This will make big oil stocks like Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) attractive. Warren Buffett has been a significant buyer of OXY stock over the past five years. Some would point to the company’s 29.3% total return over the last five years as a poor return on that investment, but Buffett is known for playing the long game. And that may be paying off as the price of oil is likely to go up in 2025. 

Of course, analysts have been predicting that turnaround in oil prices for well over a year. It didn’t happen in 2024, but a friendlier administration in Washington is likely to be a catalyst for the entire sector. Analysts agree and give OXY stock a consensus price target of $62.10, which is a 29% increase from the closing price on December 26, 2024.  

As you can see, 2025 may not be a time to reinvent your portfolio. Instead, it's a good time to double down on one or more of your biggest winners from 2024. And as we've explained in this presentation, despite the strong growth in these assets, these names have further to run.  

Each of the names on this list was chosen using the MarketBeat stock screener. In addition to filtering for large-cap stocks, we also looked for companies that were getting a Moderate Buy, Buy, or Strong Buy rating from analysts. While not a perfect measurement, analyst forecasts are a reliable predictor of institutional sentiment toward a stock.  

And speaking of institutional sentiment, you can track the institutional interest for each of the stocks in this presentation through the Ownership tab on the company's stock page. This tells you the percentage of the company's stock that is owned by institutions and shows you the inflows and outflows by quarter over the past 12 months.