This year has been a treat for investors, and it could end up even sweeter.

The S&P 500 SPX, +1.05% has tacked on 14% so far — and that’s before year-end rebalancing and hopes of a “Santa Claus rally” that could push the index even higher. Even if stocks do little from now on, it could be the best annual gain for the index since 2013.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can just pick stocks out of a hat and hope for the best. This earnings season has created plenty of losers along with the winners, and there are a number of high-profile companies right now that have downright spooky outlooks.

Also see:J.C. Penney shares sink after profit warning

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So which high-profile names have more tricks than treats in store for shareholders right now? Here are five particularly scary stocks I’m avoiding:

Tesla

Reports of “mass firings” at Tesla Inc. TSLA, -5.59% have sparked a debate about whether the company is finally going to start operating as a for-profit corporation with an eye on the bottom line. Personally, I’m not very optimistic about that long-term trend, and more specifically I’m worried about the near-term numbers as we approach its next earnings report on Nov. 1.

For starters, its first two reports in 2017 were duds, and the stock declined more than 5% after earnings dropped in both February and May. More recently, investors got some swagger back after a favorable August report. But that was fueled by a short squeeze and didn’t last; shares have slumped back to where they were at the end of July before that short-lived pop.

Most importantly, it’s hard to trust any numbers even if you like what you see with Tesla.

CEO Elon Musk was emphatic in his assurances last quarter that Tesla would reach its goal of 10,000 vehicles produced in calendar 2017, but that reassurance is now baked in and there is only a downside risk if Tesla misses. And given that Musk’s earlier assurances on Model 3 reservations turned out to be untrue and that the Model 3 rollout has been suffering “production bottlenecks” like those we saw previously in the Model X launch, I’m not encouraged. Heck, The Wall Street Journal reported some early Model 3s were actually put together by hand instead of via efficient and automated manufacturing, just so Tesla could get them out the door.

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Tesla isn’t a company that trades based on its profitability, but rather on sentiment and expectations. But it’s hard to see what the catalyst is to push sentiment, while there remain some very real downside risks. Case in point: Even as the car recently announced a deal to build cars in Shanghai, a move that should objectively be good for investors, the stock closed lower on the day.

That should tell you just what this stock is up against when it reports earnings.

Read:Tesla stock slides to lowest level since August after downgrade

General Electric

General Electric GE, -1.57% doesn’t need another bear piling on, with shares down over 30% year-to-date to hit a nearly five-year low. But I’ll do it anyway.

The biggest knock is obvious: Stagnant profit and sales, with those ailing fundamentals propped up only by short-term solutions like layoffs and the sale of its fleet of private jets.

But the bigger bearish case stems from broader organizational challenges. Recent departures, including CEO Jeff Immelt as well as General Electric’s chief financial officer and other execs, may ultimately reshape the business. But in the here and now, there is no plan to right this massive ship.

Furthermore, departures may make it even harder to understand the balance sheet of this already cumbersome business as new management considers shaking up key metrics and sharing new information with investors. GE’s non-GAAP accounting, persistent restructuring charges, pension liabilities and generally complicated corporate structure present big challenges to investors even in a time of stability. A time of transition makes the situation even worse.

Even if you have faith that things will work out in the long term and that GE will turn things around, the dividend is very much at risk. Beyond paying out more in dividends than earnings (under GAAP accounting, not its adjusted numbers), GE is sitting on a staggering $31 billion shortfall in its pension liabilities and will have to pay the piper eventually.

All that adds up to a very real case against this stock. Don’t be foolish enough to think the deep declines of 2017 can’t continue for GE in 2018, too.

Snap

Snap Inc. SNAP, +6.65% will report “earnings” in early November, but no profits are anywhere to be seen. And the even harsher reality is Snap hasn’t made much progress along the long road to break-even, with forecasts that show losses narrowing only modestly across the next fiscal year.

Of course, plenty of high-growth stocks can afford to sacrifice profitability for increased scale. But this is a company that will book less than $900 million in total 2017 sales if forecasts hold, meaning it trades for more than 19 times revenue. By comparison, Twitter TWTR, +7.09% only trades for about 6 times current sales.

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Worse, the company is struggling on its path to growth and profitability because most marketers see Snapchat’s ad interface as second-rate when compared with the world-class technology of Facebook Inc. FB, +2.66% and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +2.07% GOOG, +2.39% . Why split your ad spend when you can reach users effectively and get more visibility on other platforms?

Sure, the company has $2.8 billion on the books and a strong brand among younger users. But it is also run by its founders and made a big splash at IPO because Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy retained more than 90% of voting rights while they dumped common shares on the market. So there isn’t exactly an incentive for a vision that cares about shareholder value anytime in the near future.

That, coupled with Spiegel’s regular challenges communicating proper expectations or ongoing growth initiatives in earnings calls doesn’t lead to optimism that Wall Street may wake up in fourth quarter and decide to give this stock another chance.

Shares have risen off their all-time low in August, but an ugly report in November could send the stock back under $12 in short order. And even not, there simply isn’t a compelling reason to expect sustained upside in this troubled social media company.

J.C. Penney

What’s there to say about J.C. Penney US:JCP other than its decline over the last five years is decidedly deserved and here to stay?

The company at best posts stagnant revenue each quarter, and at worst sees its top line continue to decay disturbingly. Take last quarter, when it reported same-store sales declines of 1.3% — worse than forecast and one of the ugliest declines in the sector while troubled retailers like Nordstrom JWN, -2.03% surprised Wall Street with modest growth.

Even worse, Penney management admitted in its second-quarter conference call that traffic would continue to decline in 2017 and into 2018.

On top of that, margins continue to decline as the retailer uses big discounts to drive traffic and keep customers coming into its stores. When your top line is struggling and your profit margin is thinning, that’s a terrible situation.

I’m not as gloomy as some investors who toss around the idea of bankruptcy, since J.C. Penney has a sizable but manageable debt load and plenty of ready inventory to liquidate if it saw a short-term cash crunch. Besides, junk-bond markets these days are favorable for subprime debt issuers like this one.

But just because J.C. Penney isn’t going bankrupt doesn’t mean it’s likely to move higher. Volatility will be extreme in this $4 stock so shrewd day traders may be able to make a quick buck, but the long-term trend is decidedly down.

Valeant

Valeant Pharmaceuticals US:VRX is a stock many traders have trouble thinking rationally about. Some momentum investors fell in love with Valeant early 2015 as it surged. Others hated the stock as it cratered in 2016. And some only know about it after Bill Ackman’s very public capitulation in early 2017.

But if you can look objectively at the stock, you’ll see that this is a company that has a few things going for it but has a ton of downward pressure that will keep it down for the foreseeable future.

For starters, the company is sitting on massive debt of about $28 billion thanks to aggressive acquisitions, including a $10 billion buyout of Salix Pharmaceutical in 2015, among others. That’s all but unheard of for a $4 billion market-cap company.

Furthermore, these acquisitions are hardly part of a comprehensive and tactical growth strategy — as evidenced by a failed effort to turn around and sell Salix roughly a year after buying it.

I’m not going to relitigate Bill Ackman’s slide deck or the company’s past accounting shenanigans. All you have to do is add up the big debts to fund ill-advised acquisitions, the lack of investment in a sustainable drug pipeline to drive long-term revenue and the general frustration of Wall Street with this stock.

I could care less if the debt is slowly being chipped down via one-off transactions like the sale of its Obagi unit. As MarketWatch’s Ciara Linnane pointed out a few months back, the core business is still struggling — and there is no long-term plan to turn things around.

That’s bad news for a stable stock, but it’s downright terrible news for a company like Valeant were investors are looking for an excuse to sell.