Stifel: this famous coffee cow stock has not risen for two years and is expected to rise by 12% in the near future!

The US stock market has been rising in 2017, which means that many stocks have been overvalued, but the share price of one of the largest coffee shop chains in the United States has not risen much in the past two years, while its performance has been quite good over the same period. Such stocks are worth shutting down when Wall Street analysts generally begin to believe that the bull market is coming to an end.

Stifel, the investment bank, upgraded SBUX from hold to buy and raised its target price from $60 to $67. Driven by the Stifel rating improvement, SBUX rose more than 1 per cent before trading close to $60.

Analysts believe SBUX's same-store sales in the US will grow by 5 per cent in the next four quarters, while global store growth will be lower than US store revenue but will also have a small single-digit increase. In addition, SBUX's beverage innovation, more food options, and its technological updates are all expected to drive growth. Meanwhile, SBUX's share price has underperformed its peers in the past 12 months, and analysts believe it will rise as its performance grows.

Starbucks currently has a market capitalization of $86.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio (TTM) of 30, annual revenue (TTM) of $21.68 billion, gross profit (TTM) of $12.8 billion and quarterly revenue growth of 9.3 per cent year-on-year. The company has a total cash of $2.18 billion and a total debt of $3.19 billion.

Agency RBC Capital Mkts also gave SBUX an outperform rating this week, with a target price of $66. Analysts believe SBUX sales will grow in the rest of 2017, with the following positive factors: 1. Recommend the launch of the product, 2. Last year's Frappuccino Happy Hour continued to push, 3. 5%. News of its cold drinks, 4. Supply of fresh food, the launch of 5.Chase Visa debit cards. Analysts also believe that SBUX's earnings per share will increase in the next 2-3 years, mainly due to: 1. Administrative expenses decreased, 2. The range of share buybacks increased, 3. 5%. Growth of 2-3 percentage points from China, growth of 4.CPG business. According to analysts' models, SBUX's US revenue growth will be 3-5 per cent.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Starbucks' CEO said he saw growth from suburban America.

Its first-quarter results in January showed earnings of 52 cents a share, in line with expectations, while revenue rose 6.7 per cent year-on-year to $5.73 billion, below expectations of $5.85 billion. The company looks forward to fiscal 2017 with earnings per share of $2.12-$2.14 and revenue growth of 8-10% to $230.2-$23.45 billion. It is expected that there will be 2100 new stores worldwide in 2017.

Its fourth-quarter results in November showed earnings per share of 56 cents per share, while revenue rose 16.2 percent year-on-year to $5.71 billion.

Its third-quarter results in July showed earnings per share of 49 cents per share, while revenue rose 7.3 per cent year-on-year to $5.24 billion.

Starbucks shares have seen flat gains in the past two years, mainly because of its small revenue growth, while the US stock market is in a bull market. Investors are generally more willing to invest in high-growth stocks with high valuations such as Netflix (NFLX), AMZN (AMZN), Tesla (TSLA) and so on. And as the bull market comes to an end, investors are likely to shift money from high-risk stocks to low-risk stocks.

In addition, fast-food giants such as MCD are putting pressure on Starbucks on coffee.