In this article, we will take a detailed look at the 7 Best AI Value Stocks That are ‘Money Machines’ According to NYU’s Aswath Damodaran.
Aswath Damodaran is a Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University. His thoughts on economy and stock valuations are given a lot of weight by analysts. Damodaran in his recent interview with CNBC said that Magnificent Seven stocks have become the “value stocks for investors who care about earnings and cash flows.”
“We look at the last year and a half, they’ve added $8.8 trillion in market cap… just these seven companies. Just to give you perspective, the second-largest market in the world, China, has a market cap of $12.1 trillion. These seven stocks alone have added more in market cap than the entire German market, the French market, the Swiss market.”
Damodaran’s comments are important because he’s been repeatedly saying in the past that major technology companies are fully or overvalued. In September, he said on CNBC that if you go through the list of top tech stocks, “you are more likely to be overvalued than undervalued.”
But in his latest interview, Damodaran said that before we “dismiss” Mag. 7 stocks as “risky tech companies,” we should keep in mind that “these are the money machines in this market.”
However, when asked whether he believes we are not in any kind of “danger zone,” the professor said we are in the danger zone not just in terms of these seven stocks, but the market overall.
In this article we take a look at the Mag 7. stocks and their AI-related growth catalysts. With each stock we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Aswath Damodaran
7. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 74
Tesla is one of the notable companies in the Magnificent Seven group of stocks which according to Aswath Damodaran have become money machine value stocks.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has a forward P/E of 102 while its 14-day RSI value is 85, worse than 99% of 1342 companies in the Vehicles & Parts industry, according to data from GuruFocus.
However, some Wall Street analysts believe Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is undervalued.
Cathie Wood recently set a $2600 price target on Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) for 2029, which present a whopping 1300% upside potential from the current levels. Wood thinks the robotaxi project has the potential to deliver $8 to $10 trillion in revenue by 2030.
However, many believe Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) won’t be able to live up to the hype around its robotaxi plans. Each robotaxi is expected to have a price target of around $150K to $200K, with some estimates suggesting Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) would need about $35 billion to develop a global feet of such cars. Amid inflation and lack of preference for electric cars, American families will probably stay away from spending a fortune on robotaxis, which could cause a blow to Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) plans in the future.
Baron Partners Fund stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“The vast majority of the Fund’s underperformance this quarter stemmed from the Fund’s 10-year investment in Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA). Tesla’s shares fell 29.3% during the period and detracted 13.41% from the Fund’s first quarter results. Although Tesla has contributed importantly to the Fund’s performance since 2014, on occasion it has detracted from quarterly performance. In previous instances when Tesla shares have underperformed during a discrete period, they have shortly afterwards reflected the strong growth of the underlying business and the stock has appreciated considerably. We believe that will be the case again, although cannot guarantee it.
A significant decline also occurred at the end of 2022. In that instance, investors had become concerned about a host of external factors. Investors believed the company founder, visionary, and CEO Elon Musk was distracted by his acquisition of Twitter. They also believed a weak Chinese economy emerging from COVID and U.S. government policies would curtail the purchases of Tesla vehicles. These fears proved to be overblown. As the company achieved milestones in the succeeding year, the stock subsequently doubled over the next 12 months.
6. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 150
Aswath Damodaran believes Apple, which is part of the Mag. 7 group of stocks, has become a money machine. In October last year, while talking to CNBC, the professor recommended investors to hold on to Apple shares. He said at the time that the biggest risk for Apple is not being able to catch up on the next upgrade cycle of iPhone. However, he reiterated that Apple has become the company for “all seasons.”
Apple is among the top picks of Wedbush’s Dan Ives for the second half of 2024.
TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also said in a fresh note that Apple has a competitive edge over others with its on-device AI.
Notable Wall Street analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster recently made waves when he said in a post on Twitter that Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a better investment than Nvidia for the long term. Munster believes owning Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the next year will have a higher return because the market is in “denial” about Apple’s AI potential.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is trading at 26X its 2025 EPS estimate ($7.22). This multiple, though higher than the industry average of 30, does not show the stock’s overvalued, given Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) sales growth of 6.40% for fiscal 2025 and 10.50% growth for the next five years on a per-annum basis.
Mar Vista Focus strategy stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock was pressured in the quarter as investors fretted over softening demand for smartphones, regulatory action from the US Department of Justice, and the Chinese government mandates restricting iPhone use by government officials. Despite these near-term headwinds, we continue to believe the company remains competitively advantaged and benefits from the Apple ecosystem, which has an installed base of over 2 billion devices and over 1 billion paying subscribers. We believe the Apple ecosystem will support a more predictable cash flow stream, which should grow intrinsic value high-single-digits over our investment horizon.”
5. Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 165
Alphabet is a key part of the Mag. 7 group of stocks which Aswath Damodaran believes are money machine value stocks.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) bulls believe the company is just getting started with AI product launches. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is indeed in a strong position to develop an AI ecosystem around its products. For example, demos have shown that Gemini app will help people perform daily personal tasks like note taking, appointments, writing, etc. These features could easily be integrate with other Google apps. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) app is to urge users to sign up for ‘Google One AI Premium’ plan, which has a $19.99 price tag. Google saw advertising revenue accelerate in Q1 2024, boosted by YouTube in particular growing by almost 21% last quarter. Analysts also believe Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in a strong position to offset any headwinds or lost market share in Google search with YouTube, which saw its ads revenue reach $8.1 billion in the first quarter, a 21% growth. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) net income in the period came in at $23.66 billion, up 57%, or $1.89 per share.
Oakmark Global Select Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was the top contributor during the quarter. The stock price rose after the U.S.-based communication services company reported first-quarter operating income growth of 31% versus the prior year. We believe management’s cost reduction initiatives will improve operating efficiency and lead to faster earnings growth. In addition, we expect the company’s new AI-powered features showcased at the recent Google I/O conference will increase the value of its products to users. At the current share price, we continue to see upside to our estimate of Alphabet’s intrinsic value.”
Lakehouse Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its April 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) delivered a strong quarterly result that came in well ahead of analysts’ expectations. Revenue grew 15.4% (16.0% constant currency) to $80.5 billion and operating income grew 46.0% to $25.5 billion. Revenue growth accelerated across Search, YouTube Ads, and Google Cloud, all whilst the company delivered its highest operating margin since 2021 – showing meaningful progress in the company’s efforts to durably re-work their cost structure. On the Generative AI front, management emphasised the company’s infrastructure advantages including 5th generation TPUs(chips developed by Google specifically for AI training and inference), high performance data centre architecture, and AI models that are 100x more efficient versus 18 months ago. Overall, we believe that Alphabet is well placed for the AI opportunity ahead and still has significant latent earnings power. When combined with a relatively undemanding valuation of 21x forward net profit and over $100 billion of cash on the balance sheet, it’s not hard to see why we remain positive on the range of outcomes in the years ahead.”
