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 MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) 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.
READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In.
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 professional financial analyst studying data on a computer, illustrating the company’s index investment decisions.
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 44
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR), doing business as Strategy, offers AI-powered enterprise analytics software and services. The Q4 2024 marked its largest ever increase in quarterly bitcoin holdings, resulting in the acquisition of 218,887 bitcoins for $20.5 billion, since Q3 end. Looking ahead, MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) is optimistic about enhancing shareholder value via strategic initiatives in Bitcoin and AI technologies. The company remains well-placed to continue its growth and transformation efforts, thanks to the strong investor backing and an emphasis on transparency and value creation.
There has been optimism around MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)’s future prospects, thanks to several potential growth drivers. The expected increase in institutional adoption of Bitcoin can support the company, as it places itself as a critical vehicle for Bitcoin exposure in the public markets. MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)’s software business can also act as a long-term growth driver. The pivot to cloud-based offerings can offer opportunities for future growth in this segment. Talking about its software business, in Q4 2024, its subscription services revenues sat at $31.9 million, demonstrating a 48.4% growth YoY.
Greenlight Capital, an investment management firm, published the Q4 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:
“There is an open debate as to whether Bitcoin will at some point enter the mainstream as an official currency. In fact, there is a bill before Congress for the U.S. to establish a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and buy one million Bitcoins over five years. The bill’s purpose appears to be the use of public funds to ramp up the price of Bitcoin, thereby enhancing the wealth of existing Bitcoin holders. This seems a dubious use of taxpayer funds, but the new administration has a lot of Bitcoin-owning supporters, so it might happen. More likely, cooler heads will decide that the government should not borrow another trillion dollars in the bond market to speculate in Bitcoin and that there is, in fact, nothing strategic about doing so.
One of the biggest owners of Bitcoin is MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR). While MSTR owns a small software business, its principal pursuit is buying Bitcoin. In practice, MSTR is an investment company that buys and holds Bitcoin.2 MSTR trades at a large premium to the value of the underlying Bitcoin it holds. The idea is to raise money from new investors at a premium and use the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin. Since the Bitcoin that MSTR buys costs less than the Bitcoin-implied value of MSTR’s stock, the new investment is dilutive to new investors but accretive to existing investors. MSTR’s promoters have labeled the return to existing investors created by this scheme the “Bitcoin yield”. As Bitcoin itself yields nothing, the Bitcoin yield is simply a measure of the Ponzi finance’s effectiveness. Lately, it has been pretty effective.”
Overall, MSTR ranks 7th on our list of best Reddit stocks to invest in. While we acknowledge the potential of MSTR 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 MSTR 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.
