We recently published a list of Top 10 AI Stocks to Watch In February. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) stands against other top AI stocks to watch in February.
Barry Bannister, Stifel’s chief equity strategist, said in a latest program on CNBC that the macroeconomic factors are finally catching up to the AI-led bull market. He expects inflation to remain sticky and no further rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in the short term. The analyst also rejected the notion that the massive tech selloff after the launch of DeepSeek was a buying opportunity.
“Over 30 years ago, we used to joke about how technology was such a displacement event business where new competitors would come in and destroy the entrenched stocks, that it deserved a lower multiple because of that. It’s a short life cycle business that’s got a very short competitive advantage period. But investors forgot about that. They bid up the stocks. The growth relative to value large-cap total return, one divided by the other on a 10-year compound basis, reached the absolute outer limits of the past 90 years. And that exact limit line is exactly where it peaked—the price earnings multiple and the outperformance of growth. So, for us, it’s just a very bubbly market that’s just gotta take some air out of it.”
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For this article, we chose 10 AI stocks currently making moves in the market. 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).
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Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 286
Jessica Inskip, Director of Investor Research at StockBrokers, explained in a latest program on Schwab Network her top three reasons to be bullish on Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).
“I really do like Amazon, and there’s three primary reasons. First and foremost, of course, is AI. They have AI-driven cloud growth as AI agents are being developed, and that’s extremely important. The other is the impending TikTok ban. A ban may not be imminent, but platform diversification certainly is. One of the next innovations that I think we’ll see with the e-commerce space is the use of short-form video. That’s the next innovation that could lead to retail margin expansion with e-commerce sales from the Amazon front. Then the third, and maybe overlooked, is the AWS operational cost. I think that would be lowered actually with a stronger US dollar. The US dollar, as we see, is strengthening. I heard your previous guest even say that as well, and since many of AWS’s operational costs tend to be outside of the US, therefore that stronger dollar would actually just naturally help lower those operational costs. So, a lot working for Amazon in terms of margin expansion.”
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.
Vulcan Value Partners stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“There were five material contributors to performance: Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Salesforce Inc., Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Carlyle Group Inc., and Alphabet Inc. Amazon.com is a dominant, world class company with powerful secular tailwinds in place including its e-commerce penetration, digital advertising growth, and the cloud transition. Amazon reported strong results during the quarter. The market is beginning to reward the company for its untapped margin opportunity in the core retail business as its consolidated operating margins expanded.”
Overall, AMZN ranks 1st on our list of top AI stocks to watch in February. While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN, 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN 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.