In this article, we will take a look at the 5 best stocks to buy for a month. To see more such companies, go directly to 10 Best Stocks to Buy for a Month.
5. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 75
Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) shares were up about 3.8% over the past 30 days through June 28. As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, 75 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). The biggest stakeholder of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) was Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management which owns a $298.4 million stake in the company.
4. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 132
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares have already gained about 191% in 2023 through June 28. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is rising yet again after an engineering consortium called MLCommons revealed that Nvidia’s (NVDA) H100 GPUs set new records. According to MLCommons, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s GPUs were the fastest when it comes to training large language models.
Ithaka US Growth Strategy made the following comment about NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:
“NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the market leader in visual computing through the production of high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs). The company targets four large and growing markets: Gaming, Professional Visualization, Data Center, and Automotive. NVIDIA’s products have the potential to lead and disrupt some of the most exciting areas of computing, including: data center acceleration, artifi cial intelligence, machine learning, and autonomous driving. The stock’s appreciation in the quarter was twofold. First, the stock benefi ted from tremendous excitement surrounding the release of more advanced chatbots, specifi cally ChatGPT, and the likelihood this would necessitate the purchase of a large number of Nvidia’s products far into the future. Second, Nvidia posted a clean beat and raise quarter in mid-February, with investors becoming increasingly convinced the company and its suppliers are adequately working through the build up in channel inventories, which is reducing overall fears of ongoing inventory write-offs.”
3. Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 108
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares have gained about 6% over the past one month as of June 27. Earlier in June Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) jumped after BofA said in a note that Netflix’s password sharing crackdown could produce better-than-expected results which could cause subscriber growth for the company. BofA analysts also increased their price target for Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) to $490 from $410.
As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, 108 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX). The biggest stakeholder of Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) during this period was Boykin Curry’s Eagle Capital Management which owns a $1.5 billion stake in the company.
2. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 220
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) was gaining momentum as of June 28 after Citi analyst Ronald Josey recently said in a note that monetization and engagement on Instagram was improving. Josey, who has a Buy rating and a $360 price target on Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) stock, said that Instagram’s YoY monthly active user growth this quarter was higher than TikTok’s.
FPA U.S. Core Equity Fund made the following comment about Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:
“In last quarter’s commentary I explained a large part of these companies’ underperformance in 2022 was due to how certain companies mistook what was at least a partial demand pull-forward during the pandemic as a permanent business accelerant and as a result, expanded their cost structure as fast if not faster than revenue. Now companies such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) are cutting what they deem to be unnecessary costs. META’s Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now calling 2023 “the year of efficiency” while announcing another 10,000 layoffs on March 14 in addition to the previously announced 11,000 job cuts in November 2022. Additionally, META says it will no longer fill 5,000 previously open positions. META believes these efficiencies will result in $3 billion in annual cost savings or nearly 12% of its selling, general and administrative expenses for 2022.13 The market responded favorably to such moves by META, Amazon and Alphabet, which sent their stock prices up 76.1%, 23.0% and 17.2%, respectively, during the first quarter.”
1. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 289
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is perhaps one of the best stocks to buy for years not just a month since the company is apparently just getting started on its AI journey. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) had already gained about 40% year to date through June 28.
Recently, it was reported that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi exercised 50 call options on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) with a strike price of $180. This translates in purchase of 5,000 Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares worth between $500,001 and $1 million.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was the most popular stock among hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey as of the end of the first quarter of 2023.
L1 Capital International Fund made the following comment about Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:
“We commented in the December 2022 Quarterly Report “sentiment towards many high-quality technology and ecommerce related businesses like Amazon and Alphabet is negative. Capital flows and an over-emphasis on short-term challenges is driving share prices well below fair value, providing compelling investment opportunities for longer term investors”. In that report we outlined in detail why Amazon’s share price has been oversold and offered compelling value.
During the March 2023 quarter the share price of many large capitalisation technology companies increased significantly. The Fund has investments in Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and their share prices increased 17%, 23% and 20% (in U.S. dollars), respectively. While we continue to see value in these privileged, high-quality businesses, share prices are no longer trading at materially oversold levels and we have selectively started to trim some of the Fund’s exposure. Microsoft was trimmed due to share price performance and position size.”
You can also take a peek at 12 Best 5G Stocks To Buy Now and 10 Best Fast Growth Stocks To Buy.
