We recently published a list of 8 Best Robinhood Stocks to Buy According to Analysts. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against other best Robinhood stocks to buy according to analysts.

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has announced quarterly retail investor pulse survey results. The majority of investors’ views were bullish. Investors began the year on the bullish (58%) note, in line with last quarter (59%). Furthermore, the results also revealed that around 2 out of 3 investors (64%) saw the market rising by the end of the quarter.

What’s On Retail Investors’ Minds?

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s survey revealed that inflation has been the top worry for investors’ portfolios at 45%, almost in line with the last quarter at 46%, with market volatility at 24% coming out to be the second. Notably, the concerns related to the new administration declined 13 percentage points since the last quarter. Furthermore, around 3 out of 5 (59%) of investors see that the broader US economy remains healthy. Chris Larkin, Managing Director, Head of Trading and Investing, E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley, stated that with any new administration taking power, the potential policy changes can bring uncertainty in the broader markets. That being said, investors are optimistic and resilient amid a soft start to the new year.

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In.

Current Trends in Retail Investing

Retail outflows from the US equities increased to ~$4 billion over the previous 2 weeks due to the uncertainties related to tariffs and increased economic concerns, which resulted in a strong pullback in the S&P 500, reported CNBC, while quoting data from Barclays. Rob Austin, director of research at Alight Solutions, says that if people tried to buy the dip, there would have been evidence hinting at the increased buying of the large-cap equities. On the contrary, people are selling large-cap equities. Austin believes that this seems to be a bit of a reactionary trading activity.

CNBC, while highlighting the comments made by Venu Krishna (Barclays head of U.S. equity strategy), reported that there remains sufficient capacity for the retail investors to further disengage from the broader equity market. Notably, Barclays’ proprietary euphoria indicator exhibited that the sentiments are down to the levels that were seen around the time of the US election back in November, but remain elevated by historic standards.  The increased sell-off came as American households remained more sensitive than ever to the significant volatility in the broader equity markets.

Our Methodology

To list the 8 Best Robinhood Stocks to Buy According to Analysts, we sifted through several online rankings to shortlist the stocks trending on Robinhood. We also took help from the Robinhood Investor Index. Next, we chose the ones that analysts see significant upside to. Finally, the stocks were arranged in ascending order of their average upside potential, as of March 17. We also mentioned the hedge fund sentiment around each stock, 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).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Average Upside Potential: ~18.9%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s unique ecosystem offers significant opportunities for leveraging AI advancements. Its control over hardware and software offers it an advantage in implementing AI features that are deeply integrated and optimized for the devices. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s large installed base of devices offers a significant platform for rolling out AI features. This scale enables the company to gather significant amounts of data that can be utilized to train and improve AI models. Its emphasis on on-device AI processing remains in line with the privacy-centric approach and can act as a differentiating factor with AI becoming more prevalent in the broader consumer technology space.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s investments in chip design, mainly its custom silicon, place it favorably to develop specialized AI hardware allowing more advanced features while, at the same time, maintaining energy efficiency. This can result in AI capabilities uniquely customized to the company’s devices and ecosystem.  Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s healthy position in wearables and home devices offers opportunities related to AI integration beyond smartphones.

Columbia Threadneedle Investments, an investment management company, released its Q4 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:

“The fund maintained a position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) throughout the quarter through the release of the company’s new iPhone 16 in September. Company leaders were excited about the release of the new model, as this is the first model that will feature enhanced AI capabilities through the Apple Intelligence features. Sales for the first few weeks in October and November trailed behind year over year sales from the iPhone 15, as availability of Apple Intelligence was not compatible with all iPhone models. Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI that has allowed the integration of ChatGPT into the Apple ecosystem, separate from the core Apple Intelligence features. This partnership highlights continued progress from Apple to introduce AI capabilities into its products and we expect the iPhone 17 to have even more expansive AI capabilities, increasing potential demand for the new model that is on track to be released in 2025.”

Overall, AAPL ranks 6th on our list of best Robinhood stocks to buy according to analysts. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL 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 AAPL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.