Amazon and 2 discount retailers shine this week even as the S&P 500 struggles

Despite what’s shaping up to be a losing week for the U.S. stock market, some names have been able to buck the downturn. The three major indexes are all down more than 1% on the week as investors took profits following a recent rally. If that holds, it would break a streak of eight straight weeks of wins for the Nasdaq Composite and five straight winning weeks for the S & P 500 . But not all stocks participated in the drawdown. CNBC Pro screened for the best performers this week in the S & P 500 as of shortly after Friday’s open. The following chart also includes the share of analysts who rate the stock a buy and the expected upside or downside anticipated on average for each stock in the next year: CarMax was the best performer this week, gaining slightly more than 7%. The bulk of that rally came Friday, when shares popped after the company beat Wall Street expectations for first-quarter revenue. CarMax posted $7.69 billion, while analysts polled by StreetAccount anticipated $7.49 billion. Despite the rally, not everyone on Wall Street likes the longer-term outlook for the stock. Just three out of every 10 analysts rate used car seller a buy, with the average price target implying shares could fall nearly 21% in the next year. Shares are up more than 40% year to date. Retailers also made the cut. Discounters Dollar Tree and Dollar General added nearly 6% and 5%, respectively. Dollar Tree jumped following its investor day on Wednesday, where the company reaffirmed fourth-quarter and full-year guidance. Dollar General had more of a steady ascent over the course of the week. About two out of every five analysts rate Dollar Tree a buy, with the average price target implying shares could rally almost 8% in the next year. Slightly under half of analysts rate Dollar General a buy, with the average analyst expecting shares to gain 9.1%. The two budget retailers have diverged this year. Dollar Tree is up slightly more than 1% since 2023 began, while Dollar General has plummeted more than 30%. DLTR DG YTD mountain Dollar Tree vs. Dollar General, year to date E-commerce giant Amazon also made the list, up 4% on the week. It’s the most-favored stock of this week’s 10 best performers, with just shy 80% analysts holding a buy rating. After surging more than 50% this year, the average analyst thinks the stock could gain another 6% in the coming 12 months. Amazon shares jumped Thursday following an announcement that the company’s cloud business would invest $100 million in a program that connects the company’s machine learning and artificial intelligence experts with customers and partners. Investors have been following how companies are investing in and planning to use AI since the technology gained popularity earlier this year. — CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report