Hello,

Welcome to our flagship newsletter, MarketBeat Daily Ratings.

We'll deliver the latest "Buy" and "Sell" ratings from Wall Street's top-rated analysts directly to your inbox each morning.

But first, we need you to do two quick things:

1. Hit reply, and send a simple "Yes." Just one word. This tells Google (and other emails providers) that you actually want to get our newsletter.

2. After that, this link to confirm your subscription. That will tell us that you received our welcome email and that we should start sending your daily report. 

Confirm your subscription here.

After you have completed these two steps, we would like to gift you a free copy of one of our most popular investing reports: 7 Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever. You can download the report with this link.

Thank you again for subscribing. We look forward to being an important part of your investing journey

Matthew Paulson
Founder and CEO, MarketBeat.

P.S. If you didn’t intend to subscribe, no problem—you can unsubscribe with this link.

(ARReply-161)

5 Buy-and-Hold Stocks Built to Weather a Volatile Market

Authored by Chris Markoch. Article Posted: 9/16/2026.

It’s impossible to eliminate all the risk from investing. But that doesn’t mean investors can’t make a good attempt. Stock prices are moving sharply on individual headlines, and the winners and losers have shifted from month to month and week to week.

That’s an attractive environment for traders. However, it can be too volatile for investors seeking to buy and hold stocks for steady growth.

Small Colorado Company (Backed by Sam Altman) Could Save U.S. Power Grid (Ad)

A small Colorado company has secured rights to technology that could prevent the U.S. public power grid from collapsing — and billionaire Sam Altman is now an investor.

This under-the-radar firm is drawing serious attention from those watching the energy infrastructure space closely.

Click here to learn this company's name for free today

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2026, which is typically a strong period for stocks, the game plan is simple: Don’t overthink it. Best-in-class stocks have an evergreen quality that makes them solid choices for investors who want growth without the market drama.

Western Digital: Sold-Out Storage Demand Isn't Going Anywhere

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) is up more than 140% in 2026, despite being down more than 35% in the last three months. The company is one of the leading providers of data storage, which is essential to the artificial intelligence trade.

The recent pullback may have shaken out some of the weaker hands in WDC. However, the analyst consensus price target of $534.76 is nearly 30% below recent prices.

The key for investors to remember is that data storage is more closely tied to inference than to training new models. That means demand is likely to remain strong.

Additionally, the company has already noted that its entire 2026 hard disk drive (HDD) production capacity is sold out. It also reported that it has long-term deals extending through 2028.

NVIDIA: A Flywheel That's Still Spinning, Though at a Slower Pace

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is up about 15% in 2026. That’s slightly above the S&P 500 but far below the pace the stock has maintained over the last three years.

The bearish outlook is real. Competition in the chip sector is intensifying, and the current backlash against artificial intelligence could slow frontier model development. NVIDIA has posted record growth, but any slowdown could impact the stock, which many investors perceive as overvalued.

But there’s also a case to be made that NVDA is undervalued. That case is rooted in the company’s flywheel business model, which continues to accelerate despite claims that AI spending cannot keep growing at its current pace. Analysts agree. The consensus price target for NVDA is $324.34, implying about 50% upside.

Vertiv: The Quiet Winner of the AI Cooling Boom

Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) addresses a different area of AI infrastructure. The hardware made by companies such as Western Digital and NVIDIA generates heat. Vertiv provides the products that keep that equipment cool.

In Q2 2026, Vertiv posted revenue growth in the mid-20% range, including high-teens organic growth. The bull case centers on the company’s ability to sustain that growth over several quarters and years.

Skeptics would argue that the backlash against data centers could stall current projects. That’s a real concern and accounts for some of the 19% pullback in the stock over the last three months.

But for now, analysts are still behind VRT. The consensus price target of $357.83 is 48% higher than the stock’s recent levels.

Eli Lilly: A GLP-1 Leader With Additional Growth Engines

Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) is a best-in-class name in the often-volatile biopharmaceutical sector. LLY is only up 6% in 2026, but it’s up 50% over the last 12 months. The analysts’ consensus price target of $1,304.86 as of this writing may not fully account for anticipated earnings growth of 26%.

It’s important for investors to understand why LLY could remain a solid choice for buy-and-hold investors. The company’s leadership in GLP-1 treatments plays a significant role in the bull case.

Eli Lilly reported 48% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2026, and it has an oral GLP-1 pill on the way.

It also has a deep pipeline of drugs in other categories, such as oncology. That’s the larger case for owning LLY stock. The patent cliff eventually affects all biopharmaceutical companies. One of the best ways to mitigate that impact is to maintain a steady flow of new drugs.

There’s no guarantee that every drug will make it to market, but a company like Eli Lilly has multiple shots on goal. It’s a good bet that several of those shots will find their mark.

JPMorgan Chase: The Fortress Balance Sheet That Wins Either Way

Few factors can drive headline volatility in stocks more than the direction of interest rates and U.S. monetary policy. Owning JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) can insulate investors from some of that risk. A bank with a fortress balance sheet like JPMorgan can benefit regardless of which way interest rates move.

JPM is up more than 120% over the last five years. Of course, this isn’t a stock known for market-beating performance. The consensus price target of $359.96 is roughly in line with the stock’s recent price.

However, JPM more than makes up for that with a rock-solid dividend that the bank has increased for 15 consecutive years. The dividend has grown at an average annual rate of just over 9% over the last three years.

JPM also bought back $6.2 billion of its own shares in Q2 2026.