3 Low-Rated Stocks With Big Price-Target Gaps

Key Points

• Despite Reduce or Strong Sell ratings, Paramount Skydance, Joby Aviation, and Lucid Group carry average price targets that suggest sizable potential upside, highlighting a sharp divide between current sentiment and long-term valuation.
• High short interest is being countered by resilient institutional ownership, with fundamental drivers pointing to better performances ahead. 
• However, potential reversals hinge on specific milestones, including post-merger stabilization for Paramount Skydance, FAA certification for Joby, and a sub-$50k vehicle platform for Lucid.

Wall Street is many things, but one thing it most certainly is not is a monolith.

Despite imagery of it being a cohesive unit of elite investment bankers, a more accurate portrayal would be a highly fragmented system in which competing strategies among traders and investors, bulls and bears, and conventionalists and contrarians vie for investor dollars.  

Considering that, it isn’t uncommon for analysts to issue conflicting viewpoints. Such is the case for innumerable stocks with Reduce, Sell, and Strong Sell ratings whose average price targets suggest—despite their ratings—significant potential upside. 

In that vein, MarketBeat tracks data and provides investors with a list of 100 companies that have received the lowest average rating among equities research analysts over the past 12 months. Going one step further, the low-rated stock list also includes consensus price targets and, importantly, possible upside. 

The lowest possible ratings score is 1.00, which would indicate a 100% Sell rating. But for the following three stocks, despite their low ratings, each carries considerable upside potential, suggesting that the risk-reward ratio could favor profit for patient shareholders. 

Paramount Skydance: A Deal-Driven Rebound After a Tough Year

With a consensus rating score of 1.47, it is clear that Paramount Skydance NASDAQ: PSKY has had a difficult year.

The communication services stock has been in the headlines for months as it battled Netflix NASDAQ: NFLX for Warner Bros. Discovery, ultimately winning a deal worth about $111 billion.

But some analysts soured on the financial details of the deal, which compounded PSKY’s losses over the past year. Since its 52-week high, the stock is currently down around 50%. But shares have turned a corner, having gained more than 12% over the past five trading sessions.  

Despite 15 analysts currently covering the stock assigning it a consensus Strong Sell rating, the average 12-month price target of $12.85 suggests potential upside of more than 30% from where the stock is currently changing hands.   

Paramount is likely to experience more volatility in the short-term. The stock carries a beta of 1.37 and current short interest is notable at 6.92% of the float. But institutional ownership, which stands at 73%, remains robust, with inflows of $2.9 billion over the past year easily surpassing outflows of less than $295 million.

Joby Aviation: FAA Certification Progress Could Send Stock Flying

Despite generating nominal revenue from defense contracts, Joby Aviation NYSE: JOBY is still considered a pre-revenue company.

Given its plans to rapidly scale, the company has an elevated cash burn rate that amounted to nearly $500 million in 2025. 

The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft maker continues to pursue Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval. But commercial operations are expected to begin later in 2026 after the company is granted full FAA type certification, with a major acceleration of revenue from 2027 onward, with profitability achieved between 2029 and 2031. 

Meanwhile, Joby’s eVTOL aircraft are looking to shake up the aerospace industry. The company recently entered into a strategic partnership with Uber Technologies NYSE: UBER that will allow users to reserve eVTOL rideshares through Uber’s app.

But after running up more than 265% to its one-year high in August 2025, shares of JOBY have careened and are now down more than 57% since. The stock, which has a consensus rating score of 1.89, holds a consensus Reduce rating based on the nine analysts who currently cover JOBY.  

However, with an average 12-month price target of $13.81, Joby Aviation could deliver nearly 59% potential upside. Current short interest of 13.73% of the float is concerning, but institutional owners have been bullish, with inflows of $1.31 billion over the past year surpassing outflows of around $722 million.

Lucid: Performance Has Been Anything but Electric

Down nearly 62% over the past year, luxury EV maker Lucid Group NASDAQ: LCID holds a consensus rating score of 1.90.

On April 6 alone, shares fell 6.33% on news that the company missed Q1 vehicle delivery estimates due to supplier disruptions. 

Those recent struggles have magnified Lucid’s ongoing losses, which in 2025 amounted to $3.68 billion—the most since the company posted a net income loss of $4.75 billion in 2021. Last year’s losses were aggravated by a negative gross profit margin of nearly 93%, culminating in a consensus Reduce rating and a staggering 36.92% of the float currently shorted.

Over the past 12 months, institutional investors have pulled more than $43 billion out of the stock compared to just $3.15 billion in inflows. But with an average 12-month price target of $13.14, analysts still see nearly 41% potential upside in Lucid’s future driven by the company’s launch of a line of SUVs and a midsize platform this year with a sub-$50,000 price point, as well as a robotaxi partnership with Uber, which aims to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid vehicle equipped with Nuro Driver over the next six years.