In this article, we will take a detailed look at 9 Buzzing AI Stocks to Watch on Latest News.
Doug Clinton, Intelligent Alpha founder, talked recently about the issue of scaling in AI on CNBC and said that in the past the improvement of AI models was surging based on the data inputs. However, Clinton referred to the recent reports of AI models hitting a plateau in performance. He believes this issue will be important for AI investors in the coming months and years.
“Just to give the quick 101: Over the last few years, what we’ve seen in AI model development is that the more data you put into these models and the more compute you use to train them, the better the models get—very predictable. However, recent reports from OpenAI and Google show that the latest models they’ve trained haven’t been as good as expected based on scaling laws. This has sparked debate in Silicon Valley. Even Sam Altman tweeted about it last week, saying, “There is no wall,” so maybe it’s not an issue—we’ll see. But I think Jensen really needs to address that question because the 18 to 24-month picture hinges on whether these companies will need to invest in something beyond just compute.”
However, the analyst is bullish on the broader AI market in the long term and believes companies are just getting started in this bull market.
“I think if you take a longer-term view—2 to 4 years—we’re still very confident we’ll be in an AI bull market. That doesn’t mean there won’t be pullbacks here and there, but I think we have a long way to go. Companies are really just starting to adopt AI, and we’ll begin to see those revenues over the next year and beyond.”
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For this article we picked 10 AI stocks trending on latest news and analyst ratings. 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).
Stocks
9. SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 15
In May this year, Jim Cramer was asked about SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) on during a program on CNBC. Here is what he said:
“It’s losing money, it’s been around forever, and it’s not making money. That’s no good for me.”
SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) shares fell recently despite the company reporting impressive third-quarter 2024 financial results and raising its full-year revenue forecast.
“SOUN raised its FY24 revenue forecast and provided more details on its FY25 projections, as the company expands its target market and is well-positioned to benefit from the increasing demand for its voice-enabled ecosystem, which is expected to drive both growth and profit margins,” stated Wedbush analysts, led by Daniel Ives, in a note to investors.
One of the reasons why SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) fell is the details around its acquisitions.
In its 10-Q filing, SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) revealed some surprising details, particularly regarding the impact of its recent acquisitions. SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) had announced a deal with Amelia during the quarter and completed its acquisition of SYNQ3 at the beginning of the year, meaning the reported metrics do not fully reflect organic or pro forma growth.
Initially, the Q3 guidance indicated that Amelia would only provide a modest boost to revenues. SoundHound AI Inc (NASDAQ:SOUN) had claimed significant progress with voice AI ordering deals in the restaurant sector and boasted a large backlog of over $723 million from automotive voice AI contracts.
However, when factoring in the contributions from Amelia and SYNQ3, the actual pro forma numbers are more concerning. Revenues for Q3 dropped 15%, falling to $33.7 million from $39.7 million in the same quarter last year.
8. Marvell Tech Inc (NASDAQ:MRVL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 74
Tony Wang, T. Rowe Price portfolio manager, explained his bull case thesis on Marvell Tech Inc (NASDAQ:MRVL) during a program on CNBC:
“I think Marvel’s, you know, I like that company long term. Right now, they are gaining a lot of traction in their custom chip products, specifically with Amazon. As these workloads become really big and these hyperscale players are spending a lot of capex, naturally, workloads are going to mature, and part of those AI workloads will shift to custom and in-house solutions. So, I do think there’s a really strong future for Marvel. In addition, they have strong networking chips, and the rest of their semiconductor business is probably bottoming out here. I like the company long term, and Matt Murphy, the CEO there, has done a really nice job.”
Wall Street analysts are bullish on Marvell Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MRVL) because the company’s products are used in key products sold by major companies. Its 1.6T optical DSP is used in Nvidia’s (NVDA) Blackwell GPU platform while AI ASICS are used in Amazon’s (AMZN) Trainium 2 AI processor and Google’s (GOOG)(GOOGL) Axion CPU processor.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVL) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“During the quarter, we initiated new GardenSM positions in CCC Intelligent Solutions, Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVL) and Insmed. Marvell Technology is a semiconductor company offering networking, secure data processing and storage solutions to customers worldwide. We believe Marvell has among the broadest range of intellectual property in technological areas (e.g., high-bandwidth data switching and storage applications) that position it well for the growing requirements of data centers, wireless networks and autos. Several of the company’s product lines (e.g., custom silicon, optical connectivity and switching) are benefiting from the growth of AI data centers. And we believe a significant opportunity exists for the company to help design and manufacture cost-effective custom data center chips that would help cloud providers reduce their reliance on expensive graphics processing units (GPUs). Furthermore, like many other semiconductor companies, a portion of its business may be poised for a cyclical recovery after the industry’s recent inventory correction.”
7. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 85
Dan Niles, Niles Investment Management founder and portfolio manager, said while talking during a CNBC program that Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are appealing to its buyers because of future growth catalysts more than the EV business. The analyst also pointed to Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s high valuation.
“It’s very hard with over 100 PE for me to make a good risk-reward case in the name because people aren’t really focused on that so much. They’re looking at the optionality of what’s in the future, and that’s energy and storage, which is less than 10% of revenues but growing over 50% a year. You’ve got robo-taxis, you’ve got full self-driving over the next couple of years, and that’s what people are really owning the stock for, Joe. It’s not as much on the EV side; obviously, that’s the base business that gives them the money to fund all the rest of this. But yeah, I have the same concerns you do.”
The Tesla Robotaxi event disappointed investors. Notably absent was the discussion of a “more affordable” model that Musk had previously mentioned to boost confidence in Tesla’s vehicle sales growth outlook.
There is a lot of hype around Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) robo taxis but many believe they will not be enough to fix the company’s long-term challenges.
What are these challenges?
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) product lineup is showing signs of stagnation, with over 95% of sales still coming from the Model 3 and Model Y. Meanwhile, competitors are rolling out more advanced models. Even Rivian’s CEO suggested Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) could be nearing market saturation for these models. According to Reuters, Tesla’s market share in Europe is slipping as legacy automakers like BMW post stronger sales. Chinese competitor BYD is also gaining ground in Europe, despite talk of tariffs.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“The largest relative detractors during the quarter were Apple, Airbnb, and Tesla (not owned). We’ve spoken at length about our rationale for not owning Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA). In short, the market seems to be pricing in a lot of positive optionality for this company in the near-to-intermediate term (and particularly a fully autonomous fleet of electric vehicles in the medium term). What exists today is an automobile manufacturer limited to the higher-income segment that is increasingly challenged to sell vehicles when interest rates are not zero. We continue to question the company’s long-term growth profile and governance.”
6. ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 97
Tony Wang, T. Rowe Price portfolio manager, recently talked about his top tech picks on CNBC. ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) is one of the stocks he’s bullish on.
ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) impressed the market with strong Q3 results. But can the stock keep going higher? ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) recently launched its Now Platform Xanadu, adding more than 350 out-of-the-box generative AI capabilities to Now Assist. These features include data visualization automation, chat- and email-reply generation, change summaries, and LLM-based proactive prompts in Virtual Agent.
ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) also released RaptorDB Pro, a high-performance database enabling customers to centralize operational data and analytics onto ServiceNow platforms. These platforms are expanding the company’s abilities in the IT market.
ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) bulls believe the company’s organic revenue growth after fiscal 2025 could clock in between 20% to 22%. ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) can also expand its margins by 250bps annually, driven by 100bps from gross profits, 100bps from R&D reductions, and 50bps from SG&A leverage.
ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) will also benefit from organic growth catalysts. Grand View Research predicts that the global information technology service management (ITSM) market will grow at a CAGR of 9.3% from 2023 to 2030.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“In the third quarter, the top relative contributors to the Portfolio’s performance were NVIDIA (not owned), Shopify, and ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW). ServiceNow reported better-than-expected sales and bookings during the quarter, with subscription sales up +23%. Encouragingly, GenAI offerings within its product suite, rolled out in late 2023, already appear to be an incremental driver of this growth. In our view, ServiceNow is a great example of a consistent grower, with a strong moat serving diverse and growing end markets with expanding margin opportunities over time.”
