The holiday season is an excellent time for investors to recharge their batteries and reassess their finances for the year ahead. Market volume is low, and the news cycle tends to be light (save for the extraction of a foreign head of state now and then).

Analysts also use this time to make their S&P 500 projections for the year and prepare for the Q1 earnings season. Stock ratings from analysts aren't the holy grail of price predictions, and many analysts ‘fluff' their price targets to ensure continued access to company executives.

But whether it's a strong buy or sell rating, analysts who argue with conviction tend to garner the market's attention.

Today, we'll look at five stocks currently rated Strong Buy by analysts, and dive into why professional prognosticators are optimistic on these companies' prospects in 2026.

SEI Investments Co.

SEI Investments (NASDAQ:SEIC) is a $10 billion financial services firm that's trying to reinvent itself from a traditional wealth management group to a "wealth-tech" company that provides technology solutions for a global network of banks, advisors, managers, and institutional investors.

One of the company's newest innovations (and reasons for optimism) is the SEI Wealth Platform, which helps legacy financial firms modernize their outdated systems. The platform continues to gain market share amongst wealth managers, which is a primary reason analysts are so bullish on SEI Investments’ ability to pull off its transformation.

SEI Investments scored two upgrades in December, with both Piper Sandler and Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods moving the stock from Neutral to Outperform. Morgan Stanley boosted its price target to $117 earlier this week, and the average price target between these three is now $107, implying nearly 23% upside from current levels.

The breakout is already underway, with the stock bursting through the 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages (SMAs) and confirmation from a bullish crossover in the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator.

Copa Holdings SA

Copa Holdings (NYSE:CPA) is the income king of the airline industry, offering safe, steady dividends and consistent revenue growth. Copa's market cap is just $5.4 billion, but it’s one of the key airlines in the western hemisphere thanks to its ‘Hub of the Americas' in Panama. The hub is a crucial stop between North and South American travel, and Copa Holdings keeps its margins high by transporting cargo as well as passengers.

The dividend yield is currently 5.05% with a sub-40% payout ratio, offering tremendous security for a dividend over 5%. Copa expects to receive new Boeing aircraft this year that will help expand capacity by up to 13%, and the company already produces better margins than most of its U.S. peers. Benzinga's Analyst Rating Forecast has CPA at 4.2, a Strong Buy rating based on 13 analyst reports.

The three most recent price target updates (from JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Evercore) average $160, representing potential upside of more than 22%. A MACD crossover also marks the spot of breakout on the daily chart, with the stock now trading back above its 50-day SMA after nearly two months of resistance. With the Relative Strength Index (RSI) trending upward, as well as the rare combination of above-80 scores in Benzinga’s Momentum and Value rankings, CPA offers a unique combination of upside potential and steady dividend income.

FB Financial Corp.

FB Financial (NYSE:FBK) is the parent of FirstBank, which just received approval from the Federal Reserve to be acquired by PNC Financial Services Group. This follows FB Financial's acquisition of Southern States Bancshares, creating a leaner company focused on high-growth southern markets, such as Nashville.

Banking analysts Piper Sandler, Cantor Fitzgerald, and Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods all have Outperform ratings on the stock, with price targets ranging from $58 to $66. FBK shares posted a 12% gain in 2025, but are already up more than 5% to start 2026.

Technical traders likely picked up on the Golden Cross in September, when the 50-day SMA crossed above the 200-day SMA, triggering a sharp rally through October before pulling back to the 50-day SMA. The stock has been range-bound for most of the last two months, but now is once again bouncing off the 50-day SMA with the RSI mirroring the move. Shares are likely to tread water here until FB Financial reports its Q4 2025 results on January 21 after the market closes.

Archrock Inc.

Archrock (NYSE:AROC) is an energy company, but more of a ‘picks and shovels' play than a traditional O&G firm. The company builds natural gas compression equipment and provides installation and aftermarket services, generating recurring revenue from clients.

Some of the company's biggest clients are providing energy to AI data centers, and Archrock's backlog is growing larger by the quarter. The company is also an excellent choice for income investors thanks to its 3.27% dividend yield and a 55% payout ratio.

A breakout could be underway for AROC shares, driven by a series of 2025 analyst upgrades (currently a 4.5 Strong Buy rating based on 10 analyst reports) and a few promising technical signals. The stock had been stuck in a tight range for most of the second half of 2025, but broke above the 50-day and 200-day SMAs in December with a matching bullish MACD crossover. Despite a slight revenue decline in Q3 2025 (its first quarterly drop in over three years), AROC is well-positioned to benefit from increased energy demand from AI data centers this year.

Serve Robotics Inc.

Every conviction Buy list needs a long shot, and Serve Robotics (NASDAQ:SERV) is the $1.17 billion company behind the small food-delivery robots you may have seen if you've spent any time recently in larger cities. Serve Robotics specializes in last-mile autonomous delivery and has inked partnerships with Uber Eats and DoorDash, but also plans to branch out into retail and grocery. The company's core product is the Serve robot, which uses a four-wheel design with LIDAR cameras to navigate city sidewalks.

The company's moat in this nascent field is vast, which is why analysts have bestowed such lofty price targets. Oppenheimer rates the stock a Buy with a $20 target, while Northland Capital Markets recently upped their target to $26. The stock recently broke out of a short-term downtrend with a five-day wind streak, and now has technical tailwinds on the MACD and RSI.