8 Best Stocks to Buy for High Returns in 2024

2. Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)

Average Analyst Upside: 46.65%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 69

Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW), based in Bozeman, Montana, offers a cloud-based data storage platform enabling seamless data analysis and low-latency access to shared data sets.

In Q2 of fiscal 2025, Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) posted a strong 30% year-over-year increase in product revenue, reaching $829 million, prompting the company to raise its full-year product revenue outlook.

Following the company’s AI World Tour event, Citi reaffirmed its Buy rating and $200 price target for the stock. At the event, Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) presented its AI Data Cloud services and introduced new offerings like Cortex AI, Dynamic Tables, Iceberg, and Polaris Catalog. Feedback, however, was mixed: enthusiasm was high for products like Polaris, and Iceberg, which recently became generally available, but their impact on performance remains in the early stages.

Snowflake’s AI features are also now used weekly by roughly 25% of its accounts, showing promising early adoption, though there’s still uncertainty about how this usage will drive consumption revenue.

As of Q2 2024, 69 hedge funds held stakes in Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) totaling $3.49 billion, with Altimeter Capital Management leading as the largest shareholder, holding a $1.29 billion position.

Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its second-quarter 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:

“Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is a leading cloud data platform that is predominantly used for data analytics. The stock declined 16.4% as investors evaluated the impact of a recently announced CEO transition, an investment cycle driven by spend on AI, a cybersecurity incident, and a rapidly changing competitive environment. With GenAI capturing a larger portion of the public discourse, Snowflake’s positioning in the future data stack is under scrutiny by both investors and customers. We believe Sridhar Ramaswamy, the newly appointed CEO, can help the business more efficiently transition toward an AI-first world. While Databricks and other key competitors are presenting strong results, we believe Snowflake’s brand, existing customer base, and accelerating product innovation should allow it to continue to capture share in a relatively large and strategic market. Management continues to describe strong demand trends for its core data analytics, which is also demonstrated by the relatively healthy expansion rates among existing customers while new go-to-market initiatives can help grow the customer base further. Longer term, we remain excited about the Snowflake’s strategic opportunity as the data platform for its customers.”