This TSX top gainer is up 56% this year, with even ‘more meaningful upside,’ analysts say

5N Plus Inc. is a supplier of raw materials for the solar manufacturing industry, but also owns space solar cell producer Azure Space Solar Power GmBH. Photo by Handout

Article content

CIBC shares its Top 10 stock picks for February, where “reeling” software stocks go from here and more in The Week in Stocks.

Article content

Stock of the week: 5N Plus Inc.

Article content

Article content

5N Plus (VNP:TSX) is currently the top gainer for the year on the TSX and National Bank of Canada Capital Markets analyst Baltej Sidhu sees more upside for shares of the Montreal company, which, among other things, is a supplier of raw materials for the solar manufacturing industry, and also owns space solar cell producer Azure Space Solar Power GmBH. Shares of 5N are up 56 per cent in 2026 and Sidhu hiked his price target to this week to $33 from $30 after starting coverage of the shares at the end of January. Shares closed Friday at $27.69. Two “durable growth engines” drive Sidhu’s bullishness. 5N is the exclusive supplier of cadmium telluride to First Solar Inc., America’s largest solar modules maker, while Azure’s production capacity of space solar cell technology for satellites has orders stretching into 2030 as the Germany-based unit operates in a “structurally undersupplied market.” Sidhu also noted a recent US$18.1 million investment by the U.S. Department of Defense in 5N’s Utah facility that produces germanium for optics and solar germanium crystal supply chains. “Beyond our base case, VNP offers meaningful upside not reflected in either our or Street estimates,” Sidhu said. The 12-month price target of six analysts who follow that stock is $31.75, according to Bloomberg.

Article content

Article content

Keeping score

Article content

Article content

Article content

Article content

Article content

CIBC’s top 10 ideas for February

Article content

With much of the S&P/TSX composite index’s gains in January concentrated in precious metals, CIBC Capital Markets felt the sting of being light in that sector, CIBC analysts said, as its best ideas posted a negative return of three per cent last month. Analysts Sid Mokhtari and Michael Petipas have refreshed their top 10 list for February, which include Methanex Corp. (MX:TSX), NGEX Minerals Ltd. (NGEX:TSX), Nutrien Ltd. (NTR:TSX), Orla Mining Ltd. (OLA:TSX), Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. (PEY:TSX), Suncor Energy Inc. (SU:TSX), Whitecap Resources Inc. (WCP:TSX), Bank Of Montreal (BMO:TSX), IGM Financial Inc. (IGM:TSX), and AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. (ATRL:TSX). February is typically a “weaker” month for markets, Mokhtari and Petipas said in their note. However, they found that energy stocks tend to “outperform” in the later part of February, carrying on into April, while copper has in the past performed better than gold and silver.

Article content

Brutal week leaves software stocks ‘reeling’

Article content

Investors fled software stocks this week to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars after artificial intelligence (AI) developer Anthropic released a tool to automate legal work that initially left the developers of legal software “reeling” only to spread to other segments of the sector, David Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Research & Associates Inc., said in a note. Software stocks are down 18 per cent this year and Rosenberg estimated that the losses in the sector now total more than US$1 trillion if you factor in market capitalization, bonds and loans. Investors appeared to pivot to blue-chip companies and this is just the start of AI reshaping the investing landscape, Rosenberg said. “The latest retrenchment is less about a bubble bursting and more signs that AI is on the precipice of supplanting existing business models,” he said. Still, AI has not proved its worth, he said pointing to Alphabet Inc., which doubled its capital expenditure budget for the technology but “barely beat its revenue target” as risks of overcapacity in the sector rise. Despite the questions about AI’s ability to match the hype, investors still piled into Celestica Inc. (CLS:TSX) this week. The stock was up almost 10 per cent placing it among the top-10 gainers. TD Cowen analysts affirmed their price target of $451 for the shares on its tie-ins with Google’s AI push and shares closed Friday at $419.62. Meanwhile, Desjardins Group Capital Markets analysts cut their price targets for a TSX tech companies. Jerome Dubreuil and Laurent Fortier cut their target for Constellation Software Inc. (CSU:TSX) to $3,900 from $5,300,  with shares trading Friday at $2,380. They also cut their targets for Topicus.com Inc. (TOI:TSX) to $140 from $190 and Lumine Group Inc. to $36 from $52. The former closed Friday at $94.72 and latter at $20.00. The Desjardins pair also noted that shares of former U.S. software darlings such as ServiceNow Inc., Salesforce Inc., Intuit Inc. and Oracle Corp. declined between 20 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, year to date.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Price target hikes and cuts

Article content