We recently published a list of 11 Best Reddit Stocks to Invest In. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stands against other best Reddit stocks to invest in.
In finance, cognitive biases tend to affect investor decision-making, says Austin Barbosa, CFA, senior analyst in Client Portfolio Management at iA Global Asset Management. Among such biases, confirmation bias is particularly pervasive. This bias refers to the inclination to favour information aligning with pre-existing beliefs while, at the same time, also discounting contradictory evidence. Confirmation bias gets exacerbated by echo chambers on social media platforms, in which algorithm-fueled content personalization results in an environment reinforcing investors’ views.
To provide a brief context, an echo chamber in social media means an environment in which people are mainly exposed to opinions, information, and views which reinforce existing beliefs. Renowned social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit remain mainly prone to such dynamics, primarily among younger retail investors, which affects market dynamics.
Social Media’s Impact on Financial Decisions
Interplay between confirmation bias and echo chambers resulted in significant financial phenomena over the past few years, says Barbosa. One critical point in this regard focuses on GameStop — the rally of 2024. This stemmed from the re-surfacing of Keith Gill on Reddit and X after a break of ~3 years. The return of Keith resulted in a sudden increase in GameStop’s stock price, increasing by over 70% in a single day and touching a peak of ~$31, only to fall by more than 50% in just a few days, as per Barbosa.
Reuters, while referring to the comments made by Steve Sosnick (Chief strategist at Interactive Brokers), highlighted that this is a characteristic of a pattern which has been evolved in GameStop’s trading — the stock’s price tends to increase, then after it settles down or witnesses a correction, Gill’s persona again emerges via social media post.
Even in the cryptocurrency market, social media platforms such as X and Reddit resulted in speculative hype, mainly during bull runs, says Barbosa. Several market enthusiasts bought into projects such as Cardano (ADA) without understanding the risks. Then Cardano saw a significant decline, falling over ~40% from its 2024 peak, highlighting uncertainty and volatility.
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What Should be The Strategy?
Austin Barbosa, CFA believes that platforms such as X and Reddit also provide significant value to stay informed. While X provides access to breaking news and expert opinions, Reddit enables in-depth discussions and diverse community insights. Instead of relying on a single subreddit, it is of utmost importance to explore several other finance-oriented communities which provide different viewpoints. If an investor engages with diverse perspectives, it will help prevent the pitfalls of group thinking, providing a broader understanding of overall market dynamics. It is important to supplement the information sources through trusted and reliable financial news outlets, and market research reports.
Our Methodology
To list the 11 Best Reddit Stocks to Invest In, we sifted through Reddit threads and narrowed our list to the 11 best stocks by selecting the trending ones. Next, we chose the ones that are popular among hedge funds. Finally, the stocks were arranged in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiments, as of Q4 2024.
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).
A close-up of a wealth manager’s hands hovering over a laptop presenting a customer with investment options.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 174
TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge has maintained their bullish stance on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s stock, giving a “Buy” rating on March 10. The analyst’s rating is backed by the expected growth and strategic positioning of Google Cloud, mainly in the realm of GenAI. The analyst expects Google Cloud to significantly increase the GenAI revenue. The growth is expected to stem from the adoption of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Gemini models, which continue to gain traction among developers and are regarded as a competitive advantage over AWS and Azure.
Furthermore, Blackledge noted the significant capital expenditure Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been committing to its AI infrastructure, which can increase over the upcoming years. The investment focuses on addressing current capacity constraints as well as aiding the higher demand for Google Cloud’s AI offerings. Overall, the combination of such factors, which include the potential for GenAI to be a larger portion of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s overall revenue, supports the rating.
Columbia Threadneedle Investments, an investment management company, released its Q4 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (parent company Alphabet) generated strong double-digit returns during the quarter, as the company’s tremendous innovation in AI, along with strength in its core business of search and advertising and a healthy focus on profit growth and shareholder friendly capital allocation, shifted investor focus away from ongoing litigation with the Department of Justice related to market dominance. In the month of December alone, Google released to the public Gemini 2.0, its most capable AI model yet, as well as new generative image and vision models. And if that was not enough, Google also announced progress in quantum computing. Once considered an AI laggard, the flurry of product announcements and AI development did not go unnoticed by the market and the stock reacted accordingly.”
Overall, GOOG ranks 2nd on our list of best Reddit stocks to invest in. While we acknowledge the potential of GOOG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than GOOG 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.
