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5 Momentum Stocks to Buy for January After a Mixed December
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Key Takeaways
U.S. stock momentum to continue in January despite a mixed December, supported by earnings and Fed policy.
HOOD is accelerating growth via AI tools, new banking features, crypto expansion and global market reach.
CIEN is seeing strong AI-driven demand, lifting revenue outlook on cloud and service momentum.
Wall Street’s rally of U.S. stocks in 2023 and 2024 continued in 2025, albeit at a slow pace. In 2025, the three major stock indexes — the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite — were up 13%, 16.4% and 20.4%, respectively.
However, the last month of last year was mixed. The Dow and the S&P 500 were up 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively. On the other hand, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5%. Concerns about the continuation of artificial intelligence (AI) trade resulted in profit booking on AI-centric technology behemoths.
Nevertheless, U.S. stock market momentum is likely to continue in January supported by the strong fundamentals of the domestic economy, solid fourth-quarter 2025 earnings projections, the Fed’s accommodative monetary policies and the evaporation of trade and tariff-related issues.
The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the past month.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Robinhood Markets Inc.
Robinhood Markets operates a financial services platform in the United States that allows users to invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds, options, gold and cryptocurrencies. HOOD buys and sells Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies using its Robinhood Crypto platform.
Robinhood is accelerating growth through rapid product innovation and global expansion. Key launches include Cortex, an AI assistant for custom indicators, market analysis and real-time insights, and Legend, which adds advanced tools such as futures trading, short selling, simulated options returns and near-24/5 index options access.
Robinhood Social is introducing verified trading profiles, strategy sharing, expert portfolio tracking and soon copy trading, with users able to open up to 10 accounts for different strategies. New banking features (including expansion into mortgage loans) and a Gold credit card have broadened its personal-finance footprint. AI features and fast rollouts are increasing engagement, premium monetization and retention, while stronger tools attract both retail and advanced traders.
Internationally, Robinhood is offering tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across 31 EU/EEA countries with 24/5 commission-free trading and aims to tokenize private companies. Expanded crypto services, a proprietary blockchain and future global banking products, along with new offices in Toronto and plans for APAC, position Robinhood as a rising global fintech ecosystem. This will enable greater operating leverage, paving the way for sustained profitability.
Robinhood Markets has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 22% and 20.6%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current year’s earnings has improved 5.7% over the last 30 days.
MongoDB Inc.
MongoDB has scaled its Atlas platform beyond database management into analytics, emphasizing developer-friendly interfaces and distributed architectures. MDB targets agile development and modern workloads to derive benefits from the new generative AI world.
MDB has benefited from continued platform adoption across enterprises and startups. Its upmarket focus with larger enterprises likely supported deal sizes and sales efficiency, while the self-serve channel continued to expand, driving efficient mid-market customer acquisition.
Product initiatives during the period were still in the early stages of rollout. MDB introduced new Voyage AI embedding models and launched the Model Context Protocol Server in public preview, extending integrations with tools such as GitHub Copilot and Anthropic Claude. These moves strengthened MDB’s positioning in AI-driven applications.
MongoDB has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 17.5% and 17%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 29.6% over the last 60 days.
Samsara Inc.
Samsara provides solutions that connects physical operations data to its connected operations cloud in the United States and internationally. IOT is developing and building sensor systems that utilize wireless sensors with remote networking and cloud-based analytics.
IOT’s Connected Operations Cloud includes Data Platform, which ingests, aggregates, and enriches data from its IoT devices and has embedded capabilities for AI, workflows and analytics, alerts, API connections, and data security and privacy.
Samsara has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 19.8% and 12.9%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 1.8% in the last 30 days.
Ciena Corp.
Ciena’s fiscal fourth-quarter reflected year-over-year 20% top-line gains, 69.5% EPS growth and a record $5 million order backlog, driven by accelerating AI-led demand from cloud and service provider customers. Driven by strong cloud and service provider momentum, CIEN gained 2 points of optical market share year to date and expects further gains in 2026.
Networking Platforms revenue rose 22% to $1.05 billion, driven by 19% Optical growth on a 72% RLS surge and 49% growth in Routing and Switching from DCOM demand. CIEN lifted its fiscal 2026 revenue outlook to $5.7-$6.1 billion, nearly 24% growth at the midpoint, up from the prior 17%, on strong demand from cloud, DCI, and AI infrastructure.
Increased network traffic, higher demand for bandwidth, and adoption of cloud architectures remain key growth drivers as the company expects to improve its profitability with a balanced mix of new and existing customers. CIEN’s portfolio, including WaveLogic, RLS, Navigator, and Interconnect Solutions, remains a recognized industry standard, with WaveLogic 6 and RLS giving it an 18–24 month technology lead and strong positioning to serve global AI network opportunities.
Ciena has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 24.3% and 97.7%, respectively, for the current year (ending October 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current year’s earnings has improved 19.7% in the last 30 days.
Core & Main Inc.
Core & Main distributes water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection products and related services to municipalities, private water companies and professional contractors in the municipal, non-residential and residential end markets in the United States.
CNM’s product portfolio includes pipes, valves, hydrants, fittings, and other products and services, storm drainage products, fire protection products, and meter products. Its products and services are used in the maintenance, repair, replacement and construction of water and fire protection infrastructure.
Core & Main has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 3% and 7.7%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 24.4% over the last 30 days.
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5 Momentum Stocks to Buy for January After a Mixed December
Key Takeaways
Wall Street’s rally of U.S. stocks in 2023 and 2024 continued in 2025, albeit at a slow pace. In 2025, the three major stock indexes — the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite — were up 13%, 16.4% and 20.4%, respectively.
However, the last month of last year was mixed. The Dow and the S&P 500 were up 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively. On the other hand, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5%. Concerns about the continuation of artificial intelligence (AI) trade resulted in profit booking on AI-centric technology behemoths.
Nevertheless, U.S. stock market momentum is likely to continue in January supported by the strong fundamentals of the domestic economy, solid fourth-quarter 2025 earnings projections, the Fed’s accommodative monetary policies and the evaporation of trade and tariff-related issues.
At this stage, it will be prudent to invest in stocks with a favorable Zacks Rank that have momentum in January. Five such stocks are: Robinhood Markets Inc. (HOOD - Free Report) , MongoDB Inc. (MDB - Free Report) , Samsara Inc. (IOT - Free Report) , Ciena Corp. (CIEN - Free Report) and Core & Main Inc. (CNM - Free Report) . Each of our picks currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and has a Zacks Momentum Score of A or B. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the past month.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Robinhood Markets Inc.
Robinhood Markets operates a financial services platform in the United States that allows users to invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds, options, gold and cryptocurrencies. HOOD buys and sells Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies using its Robinhood Crypto platform.
Robinhood is accelerating growth through rapid product innovation and global expansion. Key launches include Cortex, an AI assistant for custom indicators, market analysis and real-time insights, and Legend, which adds advanced tools such as futures trading, short selling, simulated options returns and near-24/5 index options access.
Robinhood Social is introducing verified trading profiles, strategy sharing, expert portfolio tracking and soon copy trading, with users able to open up to 10 accounts for different strategies. New banking features (including expansion into mortgage loans) and a Gold credit card have broadened its personal-finance footprint. AI features and fast rollouts are increasing engagement, premium monetization and retention, while stronger tools attract both retail and advanced traders.
Internationally, Robinhood is offering tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across 31 EU/EEA countries with 24/5 commission-free trading and aims to tokenize private companies. Expanded crypto services, a proprietary blockchain and future global banking products, along with new offices in Toronto and plans for APAC, position Robinhood as a rising global fintech ecosystem. This will enable greater operating leverage, paving the way for sustained profitability.
Robinhood Markets has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 22% and 20.6%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current year’s earnings has improved 5.7% over the last 30 days.
MongoDB Inc.
MongoDB has scaled its Atlas platform beyond database management into analytics, emphasizing developer-friendly interfaces and distributed architectures. MDB targets agile development and modern workloads to derive benefits from the new generative AI world.
MDB has benefited from continued platform adoption across enterprises and startups. Its upmarket focus with larger enterprises likely supported deal sizes and sales efficiency, while the self-serve channel continued to expand, driving efficient mid-market customer acquisition.
Product initiatives during the period were still in the early stages of rollout. MDB introduced new Voyage AI embedding models and launched the Model Context Protocol Server in public preview, extending integrations with tools such as GitHub Copilot and Anthropic Claude. These moves strengthened MDB’s positioning in AI-driven applications.
MongoDB has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 17.5% and 17%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 29.6% over the last 60 days.
Samsara Inc.
Samsara provides solutions that connects physical operations data to its connected operations cloud in the United States and internationally. IOT is developing and building sensor systems that utilize wireless sensors with remote networking and cloud-based analytics.
IOT’s Connected Operations Cloud includes Data Platform, which ingests, aggregates, and enriches data from its IoT devices and has embedded capabilities for AI, workflows and analytics, alerts, API connections, and data security and privacy.
Samsara has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 19.8% and 12.9%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 1.8% in the last 30 days.
Ciena Corp.
Ciena’s fiscal fourth-quarter reflected year-over-year 20% top-line gains, 69.5% EPS growth and a record $5 million order backlog, driven by accelerating AI-led demand from cloud and service provider customers. Driven by strong cloud and service provider momentum, CIEN gained 2 points of optical market share year to date and expects further gains in 2026.
Networking Platforms revenue rose 22% to $1.05 billion, driven by 19% Optical growth on a 72% RLS surge and 49% growth in Routing and Switching from DCOM demand. CIEN lifted its fiscal 2026 revenue outlook to $5.7-$6.1 billion, nearly 24% growth at the midpoint, up from the prior 17%, on strong demand from cloud, DCI, and AI infrastructure.
Increased network traffic, higher demand for bandwidth, and adoption of cloud architectures remain key growth drivers as the company expects to improve its profitability with a balanced mix of new and existing customers. CIEN’s portfolio, including WaveLogic, RLS, Navigator, and Interconnect Solutions, remains a recognized industry standard, with WaveLogic 6 and RLS giving it an 18–24 month technology lead and strong positioning to serve global AI network opportunities.
Ciena has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 24.3% and 97.7%, respectively, for the current year (ending October 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current year’s earnings has improved 19.7% in the last 30 days.
Core & Main Inc.
Core & Main distributes water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection products and related services to municipalities, private water companies and professional contractors in the municipal, non-residential and residential end markets in the United States.
CNM’s product portfolio includes pipes, valves, hydrants, fittings, and other products and services, storm drainage products, fire protection products, and meter products. Its products and services are used in the maintenance, repair, replacement and construction of water and fire protection infrastructure.
Core & Main has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 3% and 7.7%, respectively, for next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year’s earnings has improved 24.4% over the last 30 days.