19 stocks that will take Nasdaq to 6,000

Published Tue, Mar 3 20158:41 AM ESTUpdated Wed, Mar 4 20157:16 AM EST

Now that the Nasdaq Composite Index closed above 5,000 for the first time in 15 years as investors finally exorcised the ghosts of the dotcom bubble era, what's next? Will the bullish trend remain intact? If so, here are the stocks that could lift the Nasdaq to 6,000. The benchmark has two things going for it this time. First, technology stocks aren't nearly as overvalued as they were in 2000 when triple-digit multiples on earnings were everywhere. And second, the technology sector isn't the only one pushing the index higher. This rally is broader. "The Nasdaq's gain to near 5,000 has given rise to much hand wringing, with this psychologically important level bringing up worries of a 'bubble,'" BTIG Chief Strategist Dan Greenhaus said in a note to clients Monday morning. "While tech suffers from some of the same valuation issues as other sectors, we find comparisons to 2000 inappropriate. The sector remains attractive on a relative basis and we maintain our overweight despite the gains." Note that as the Nasdaq grows, it should get harder to keep achieving these round number milestones. It took about a year to go from 3,000 to 4,000, but then about 16 months to rise by the next 1,000 points. CNBC Pro used a number of different methods to try to identify the stocks—tech or not—that could lead the next leg in the Nasdaq higher over the long term. First, we took a recent Citigroup report showing the stocks in the top 10 holdings of the 50 biggest mutual funds and hedge funds and broke out the stocks that the funds added more of in the recent quarter. Among Nasdaq names, mutual funds bought more of Apple , Amazon.com , Comcast , Facebook and Biogen , according to the Citi report. Sixteen of the biggest mutual funds have Apple among their top 10 holdings, up from 13 a quarter earlier. Amazon saw even more buying interest as 15 of the largest mutual funds now hold the stock among their top positions, up from just eight a quarter earlier. Hedge funds increased positions in eBay , Microsoft , Charter Communications and Gilead . Facebook made this list as well. CNBC Pro got a few bonus names courtesy of Symmetric.io , which closely tracks the performance of hedge funds and the stocks these funds are using to attain those results. Among the top-performing funds, Staples was one of the most common new positions last quarter. Netflix was the most-increased position, according to Symmetric.io. Read More Apple value to hit $1 trillion in 1 year: Analyst Less important in the eyes of many traders are the stocks that are getting love from Wall Street analysts. To make this analyst data a little more valuable, even to the skeptics, we looked at which Nasdaq stocks had the most upgrades in ratings over the last year. Since analysts typically have a 12-month time frame, the stocks that saw the biggest increase in buy ratings over the last year should get the biggest lift for the next year. We used data from Bespoke Investment Group that shows which stocks whose percentage of "buy" ratings increased by the most. Less than a third of Wall Street liked E*Trade Financial a year ago. Now the stock is recommended by three-fourths of analysts, according to Bespoke. Almost 70 percent of analysts recommend Applied Materials , up from 44 percent a year ago. Autodesk , Netflix and Endo International were other Nasdaq names that analysts increasingly like. For those traders looking for some short-term plays in Nasdaq land, CNBC Pro used Kensho, a quantitative analytics tool, to find the stocks that have just gone through extreme drops and are statistically likely to snap back higher. Shares of Baidu , for example, have cratered by 10 percent this year and are now 1.6 standard deviations away from their 50-day moving average. Using statistical and historical analysis, Kensho puts the probability of a move higher over the next five trading days at 81 percent. Fossil , Garmin and Fastenal are also due for a reversion-to-the-mean trade. Disclosures: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho. Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.

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If so, here are the stocks that could lift the Nasdaq to 6,000.