We recently published a list of Top 10 Stocks to Watch as AI Trade Dynamics Change. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) stands against other top stocks to watch as AI trade dynamics change.
Aswath Damodaran from NYU Stern School of Business said in a recent program on CNBC that AI “buzzwords” are not boosting the market anymore as investors grow more concerned about capital spending.
“I’ve said about data centers we’ve gotten way ahead of the game. I mean, the AI product and service business, which ultimately is what has to pay for all of this, has not taken off in any substantial way. I’m hard-pressed to think about any company making significant money from the AI product and service business.”
Damodaran said that the “sobering” of the AI trade started in September last year and the DeepSeek breakthrough in China also had an impact on the industry.
“It’s part of, I think, what you see almost every buzzword in history in the last four decades. I call these the ‘bar mitzvah moment,’ where people wake up and say, ‘Okay, there’s a lot of promise here, but show me something that I can hang my hat on.’”
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For this article, we picked 10 stocks Wall Street analysts have been talking about lately. 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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
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Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 121
David Nelson from Belpointe Asset Management said in a latest program on CNBC that Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) has won the streaming wars and is growing faster than peers.
“Everybody’s looked at the streaming stocks, and you can either own a company that is trying to become the next Netflix or you can buy Netflix. The war is over, Netflix won. They added 19 million subscribers in their last quarter. That puts them over 300 million worldwide and counting. The added caveat is that they’ve now added advertising, and those margins on the bottom line are going to start to expand. It’s almost like a flywheel right now. They’re growing faster than their peers, so they can spend more on content. That, of course, increases engagement, and the cycle repeats itself. This is a no-brainer. This is one you have to own.”
Guinness Global Innovators stated the following regarding Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX). The streaming giant is a high-quality, fast-growing business with a solid growth runway that is being leveraged by a competent management team. Netflix transitioned to streaming well before competitors and is now the dominant streaming player. Its first-mover advantage allowed it to accrue a vast content library (when capital was cheap and investors were patient) and it has built on this moat with continued investment into original content. This includes a growing non-English catalogue, which has opened up international markets and allowed continued subscriber base growth, which now stands at 270m. Monetising its ad-tier subscribers, expanding penetration in developing markets, and incremental revenue-per-user increases will drive the growth outlook, while Gaming / Sports remains a potential growth avenue for the future. Although the valuation is not overly cheap in the absolute (priced at c.34x 1yr forward earnings), the stock has historically traded in a wide range (40x+ in the pre-COVID growth era and troughing at c.12x in late 2021 over growth fears), we feel the current quality-growth attributes of the firm justify this premium to the market. At present, the business and the narrative around it have turned a corner following concerns over profitability. Management actions have driven both subscriber numbers and profits up meaningfully in recent years, and investors look forward to the encouraging runway for growth – and most importantly profitable growth – that lies ahead. Even as management shift investor focus away from pure subscriber growth to user engagement, there is still a double-digit top-line forecast, while c.25% or more on the bottom line and a strong improvement in margins and free cash flow all make for an encouraging outlook.”
Overall, NFLX ranks 6th on our list of top stocks to watch as AI trade dynamics change. While we acknowledge the potential of NFLX, 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 NFLX 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.