We recently published a list of Analysts Are Talking About These 10 AI Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) stands against other stocks analysts are talking about.
Marco Argenti, Chief Information Officer at Goldman Sachs, recently said that in 2025, the world will witness the full potential of AI that has been in development. He used the analogy of a child raised in a library, now ready to step out into the world.
“What if they, we make them interact with sensory data, with vision data, with, uh, you know, like basically opening that door of the library and making this child walk into the real world? I think this creation of word models, like they’re called generally in the industry, where you combine multimodal information, that is not only text but is also videos, but is also sensory data. It might be temperature, it might be anything you can perceive around you, could actually unlock the next level of capabilities,” Argenti said, according to CNBC.
Despite high hopes, a potential plateau in performance improvements in AI systems, high energy consumption of AI data centers and transparency remain key issues tech companies will continue to grapple with in 2025.
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For this article, we picked 10 AI stocks currently trending based 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).
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 193
Doug Clinton from Deepwater Asset Management said in a program on CNBC that the focus in the AI industry would shift to custom silicon chips from hyperscalers.
“If you look at just the AI trade relative to the dot trade, people often make parallels. Sometimes they’re useful, and in this case, you look back to the dot era. Cisco, I think, was sort of the poster child. NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is our poster child today, and it is generally, I think, a barometer of just how people are thinking about the trade.
So what I think we could see happen is at some point next year—and again, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is still a top holding for us—but at some point, I think you could see NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) maybe falter a little bit. Some of these other names, like a Broadcom or like a Marvell, might pick up a little bit more momentum.
The sentiment then may be that, “Hey, the AI trade’s over, you know, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is done, and therefore it can’t keep going.” I think that would be a mistake, though, because the AI trade is not just about Nvidia. It’s about many other companies.”
Simply beating earnings estimates is not enough for NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) anymore, and the impact of high expectations will continue to weigh on the stock as growth cools.
Nvidia’s forward P/E ratio for the fiscal year ending January 2026 is around 31. An EPS surprise of 8.5% was not able to help the stock. A similar trend occurred following the second-quarter earnings after a 5.6% EPS surprise. It’s difficult to see Nvidia maintaining a mid-70s gross margin by the end of 2026. Over the last two quarters, Nvidia has already reported a drop in its gross margin from 78% to 74.5%.
Then there’s competition. Amazon (AMZN) recently disclosed its Trainium 3 chip, which is set to be released by the end of 2025. The chip is expected to be twice as fast with 40% more power efficiency than the previous generation, manufactured on TSMC’s (TSM) cutting-edge N3 technology. Reportedly, technology giant Apple (AAPL) will be a consumer of Amazon’s new silicon.
Manole Capital Management stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“As of this publication, Nvidia is up roughly 150% year-to-date. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) was the largest gainer in the S&P 500 last year and has more than tripled in value over the last year. It hit an eye-opening market capitalization of $3 trillion in June, less than four months after it eclipsed the $2 trillion mark. Enthusiasm for everything AI-related, especially for the primary chip maker whose products are essential to powering AI technology, continues to fuel the market. Last quarter, and for the fifth consecutive quarter, Nvidia reported sales and profits that blew past Wall Street expectations. The stock rose +37% in the second quarter alone.”
Overall, NVDA ranks 3rd on our list of stocks analysts are talking about. While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
