We recently published a list of 10 Best Stocks to Buy and Hold For 5 Years. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stands against other best stocks to buy and hold for 5 years.
Is Corporate America Celebrating the New Administration?
On November 7, Reuters reported that stocks in the United States were higher than usual after the Fed announced a 25 basis point rate cut, extending the rally fueled by the election results. The Fed decision came promptly after the job market showed signs of easing and inflation moved towards the Central Bank’s target of 2%. Most investors expect the new administration to ease taxes and regulations, all of which sparked all three of the major indexes. The S&P 500 and Dow, each logged their largest one-day percentage jumps in two years.
Now that the elections are over, investors are keen to know how will markets perform amid election results. On November 8, Bethany McLean, contributing editor at Vanity Fair, joined Catalysts on Yahoo Finance to discuss why businesses may be optimistic as the new president takes over the White House.
McLean emphasizes that investors foresee a myriad of benefits such as tax cut extensions, fewer regulations, and less aggressive antitrust oversight, all of which have sparked a surge in markets. Despite the possible benefits, she emphasizes it is difficult to predict what the administration is going to do at the moment.
McLean expects the new administration to be friendlier with companies in the technology sector, however, she remains fixated on waiting to see how the policies play out. She further adds that if any future policies made by the new administration negatively impact the stock market, she expects them to “switch course.”
On the flip side, some analysts maintain that the easing cycle has a greater bearing on the stock market than the elections, hinting that value names may be more important as of now. On November 7, Arup Datta, senior vice president at Mackenzie Global Quantitative, joined Wealth! on Yahoo Finance to share his market thesis as the 2024 elections come to a close.
Datta shares that he is extremely positive about the market but emphasizes that the win will have little impact on financial markets in the long term. Speaking of the magnificent seven, he adds focusing on quality names with positive growth and value for his investment portfolio helps him navigate the market in such conditions.
He suggests that while the magnificent seven have been the talk of the town for the past 18 to 21 months, he would like to “pivot away” from that by a little. Historically, value stocks have performed better amid an easing cycle, adds Datta.
As the new administration settles in and the Fed initiates its second cut of the cycle, the near-term market will most likely remain volatile. Speaking of the future, some names happen to promise long-term growth due to their proprietary revolutionary technologies and crucial investments.
Our Methodology
To come up with the 10 best stocks to buy and hold for 5 years, we sifted through multiple similar rankings and compiled an initial list of 20 stocks. We then ranked the top 10 based on their hedge fund sentiment at the end of Q2 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Photo by Bryan Angelo on Unsplash
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 308
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) ranks first on our list of the best stocks to buy and hold for five years. The technology company is an e-commerce giant that also provides streaming and cloud computing services.
The company has not only been actively involved in the development of AI hardware and software but has also signed partnerships with the government and AI startups. Similarly, in a rather interesting development, on October 16, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced its plans to invest in nuclear energy to meet the power demand from AI data centers.
Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) growth trajectory in AI hardware and software is exceptional. More recently, on November 4, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced the general availability of the company’s latest and most intelligent models in the Claude family in Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service allowing people to build AI applications. Coming to its e-commerce business, the company launched powerful generative AI features in Q3 2024 such as Rufus, a shopping assistant, and Project Amelia, an AI assistant for sellers.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has significant growth potential and to achieve such the company is working tirelessly. Over the next few years, the company is not only poised to become a fully functional AI company but it is also on track to become carbon-free.
Diamond Hill Select Strategy stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top individual contributors in Q2 were Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Texas Instruments and Mr. Cooper Group. Internet retail and cloud infrastructure company Amazon is benefiting from strong profitability, particularly in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business. Shares also received a boost amid growing optimism around the demand for AWS as Amazon customers’ investments in generative AI projects continue growing.”
Overall, AMZN ranks 1st on our list of best stocks to buy and hold for 5 years. While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that certain 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 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.
