We recently published a list of Top 10 Buzzing AI Stocks Now. Since Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) ranks 1st on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Following the aggressive rate cut by the Federal Reserve, the market roared to new highs but quickly lost enthusiasm as investors look for clues on what might be ailing the economy that pushed the Fed to go more dovish than expected. However, others think the bull market is going to continue.
BMO Capital’s Brian Belsk has raised the S&P 500 target for 2024 to 6,100 from 5,600. Talking to CNBC in a latest program, Belsk said the “resiliency” of this bull market is “undoubted.”
The analyst said that the stock market is going higher through the end of this year.
“We do believe that the Fed is doing a great job. We believe the Fed that we are not hitting into a recession. We believe the Fed that we are heading into more of a soft landing,” the analyst said.
Belsk thinks we are in the “1995-1996 environment” where we can “handle” the 24x earnings multiple.
The analyst added that the Mag. 7 stocks underperformed the market in the third quarter and yet the broader market grew, which shows the market rally is broad.
For this article we chose 10 AI stocks trending on the back of latest news, earnings 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).
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Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 308
Ankur Crawford, Alger executive VP, while talking to CNBC in a latest program said that in about 3 to 5 years AI is going to provide us with superhuman intelligence.
“All of the CapEx being spent today is whole-heartedly justifiable because the opportunity to monetize that AI by that time is beyond what anyone has contemplated in the market so far.”
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the top AI picks of Ankur Crawford.
Cantor Fitzgerlad recently initiated coverage of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) with an Overweight rating and said in a broader industry note that despite strong performance, many tech stocks remain attractively valued.
“Despite strong performance over the last 18 months, valuations in internet names are fairly reasonable and should benefit from the expectation for upcoming rate cuts, tempered by decelerating top-line growth and as benefits from widespread cost-cutting fade,” Cantor said.
AWS’s revenue growth accelerated from 17.2% in Q1 to 18.8% in Q2, driven by a shift from on-premises infrastructure to cloud solutions and increasing demand for AI capabilities. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) advertising segment added over $2 billion in revenue year-over-year, indicating significant potential in video advertising and opportunities within Prime Video offerings.
Like other tech companies, fears stemming from high CapEX are keeping investors on the sidelines. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) spending is expected to rise amid broadband project Project Kuiper and AI growth. Investors are still figuring out whether AI monetization and ROI will come anytime soon. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is also facing a slowdown in consumer spending, especially for higher-ticket items like electronics and computers.
Based on Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) Q3 guidance, its revenue growth would be 11%. The stock is trading 35x its fiscal 2025 earnings estimates set by Wall Street. This shows the stock is fairly priced and investors looking for strong growth could look elsewhere.
Hayden Capital stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Our portfolio is still recovering from the 2022 downturn, although we’ve made meaningful progress in the last two years. While that experience has taught us many lessons, that dislocation also provided a rich vein of opportunities that we continue to mine today
Some of our biggest winners in the last two years, have been “re-acceleration” stories. These are cases where once rapidly growing companies suddenly put the brakes on during a weak economy. There could be several reasons for this – customers pulling back during a recession, the company proactively curtailing growth spend as a precaution, needing to cut costs & right-size the business to become profitable quickly, or many other reasons.
But the commonality seems to be that as soon as growth stops, the market narrative turns suddenly from positive, to “this company is finished”. They go from being valued for many years of rapid growth, to being priced like a mature company that will never realize significant growth again. But often neither scenario is true, with the ultimate future path somewhere in between.
I find the fact this type of opportunity even exists, fascinating. Especially since it seems to happen every bear-market – perhaps indicating it’s embedded in human nature (and thus persistent & likely minable throughout one’s investing career). For example, I gave the examples of Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock performance in our Q1 2022 letter (please re-read this piece for more context; LINK)…” (Click here to read the full text)
Overall, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) ranks 1st on Insider Monkey’s list titled Top 10 Buzzing AI Stocks Now. While we acknowledge the potential of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), our conviction lies in the belief that 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.
READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion “Opportunity” for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
