In this article, we will take a detailed look at the 10 Stocks to Buy and Sell in 2025: Top Analyst Calls.
Investor interest in AI stocks is increasing as mounting evidence points to strong demand for AI tools and technologies, forcing skeptics who once called it a bubble to retreat. CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa recently talked about some mixed signals from tech companies in the latest earnings season and discussed why the underlying demand in the AI industry remains strong. She said a strong revenue boom is providing traction and a new “baseline” for the industry.
“When you combine TSC’s outlook this week from other ones, forget ASML for a moment. Let’s look at Nvidia, Meta, Google in the public markets, Anthropic, other startups in the private markets. It all suggests that a new AI baseline exists, not a bubble. Even if the numbers look stretched at first glance, even if you have the ASMLs giving you different signals underneath the headlines, there’s real revenue traction. Nvidia is still adding earnings power with China back in play. Meta, Google—they’re seeing, Microsoft and Google are seeing explosive token growth, and that is a clear sign of surging demand. And Meta, not to mention spending hundreds of billions on capacity.”
She also shared data showing that NASDAQ stock valuations remain below their levels during the dot-com boom.
“At its peak during the dot-com bubble as well, poster child Cisco had a P/E valuation of about 200. Nvidia’s current one is around 56. Then you look at the S&P’s valuation—it’s also well below dot-com bubble levels.”
Photo by fabio Spano on Unsplash
READ ALSO 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In
For this article, we picked 10 stocks that top Wall Street analysts were talking about recently. 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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
10. Reddit Inc (NYSE:RDDT)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 72
Megan Brantley from LikeFolio said in a recent program on Schwab Network that Reddit Inc (NYSE:RDDT) stock has been taking a hit amid investor concerns related to AI. These concerns stem from the assumption that when users can get answers from AI apps, they won’t visit Reddit Inc (NYSE:RDDT) pages. However, the analyst explained why she’s bullish on the social media stock and highlighted some data she called “phenomenal.”
“When we look at our data, we know that at least near-term right now the big driver for Reddit is advertising revenue. And so we track a lot of visits to ad managing platforms across the board from Reddit to Pinterest to as you can see on this chart to Google Ads below. And the data that we’re tracking for Reddit is pretty phenomenal. We’re seeing a massive uptick. And I think there are two takeaways here whenever you look at this chart is that we’re seeing a swing in a positive way just in overall advertising interest. So I think this is something where you know previously whenever we brought you this data there might have been one or two names in the green on this forward-looking ad interest and now we’re seeing a big spike. So we think that this is bullish for a lot of these names.”
Maple Tree Capital stated the following regarding Reddit, Inc. (NYSE:RDDT) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“Reddit, Inc. (NYSE:RDDT) is Heartwood’s newest, and smallest, position. We anticipate growing this position in size over the coming quarters and years as the story parallels pretty closely to what we see in Grindr in the Jonagold portfolio. Reddit holds incredibly unique and structured user-generated data, which will be extremely valuable in the AI era. Additionally, their user base spends a ton of time on the app. It is far easier to monetize users if you have users! Reddit has spent decades acquiring a user base and is just at the beginning of their monetization journey. More people visit Reddit every day than they do Netflix. Their balance sheet is clean, but stock-based compensation and dilution are significant. We wrote a little more about Reddit here and expect to share more on our thesis shortly.”
9. ASML Holding NV (NASDAQ:ASML)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 80
Joe Tigay from Equity Armor Investment said in a recent program on Schwab Network that the US government’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell chips in China could be “huge” for ASML Holding NV (NASDAQ:ASML). He explained why the company is important in the AI industry:
“ASML has been a company I’ve been following for the past few years. I am obviously a big fan. It’s been behind this chip revolution. It makes what people have called the most complicated machine humans have ever built and as you can imagine it is very expensive to produce. They are essentially the machine that makes the machine. So we can’t get these Nvidia chips without these ASML machines. And I think this China news could be really huge for this company. We remember they took a big write off, big leg down when the China news came out that Nvidia will not be selling to China earlier in the year. So it’s going to be interesting to see are we going to be able to recover all that? Yes, the stock actually has recovered from that gap right now, but a lot of that recovery was just from new businesses, existing growth of their business.”
Parnassus Growth Equity Fund stated the following regarding ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“In Information Technology, we moved from an underweight to an overweight as we added new positions in Synopsys, ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML) and AppFolio while selling Adobe and Procore Technologies. ASML is a leading supplier of photolithography systems, equipment crucial for producing advanced microchips. It has a wide moat built on technology innovation, high market share and strong customer and supplier relationships.”
8. Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ:LRCX)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 91
Lucas Downey from MoneyFlows talked about Lam Research during a latest program on Schwab Network. He believes Lam Research is one of the top semiconductor stocks to buy on the dip.
“Semiconductors have been super hot, a name that I’ve owned for a number of years and continue to buy on dips, Lam Research. So, as AI continues to just gather steam and devices continue to get smaller, these are the types of companies that are going to win and they’re going to lead. Just last quarter back in April, they gave earnings. They set their expectations well above the street. Those are the types of companies you want to be betting on on any type of pullback. And we know semiconductors can get very volatile, especially heading into earnings.”
Appalaches Capital stated the following regarding Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“We also initiated positions in ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) and Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX), companies that manufacture capital equipment for the semiconductor industry. You may be wondering if I have been “red-pilled” by A.I. after being so iconoclastic to the trend just a year ago. Not quite. Despite all of the attention being given to Artificial Intelligence, the rest of the semiconductor industry, like memory and trailing-edge nodes, has been recovering out of a cyclical trough. Semiconductor foundries have additionally announced large increases to their capital expenditure budgets, which flow directly into the backlogs of companies like ASML and Lam. After a long period of consolidation, both operate in a highly consolidated industry structure with little to no competition. Both companies have smart and disciplined capital allocation, returning most of their cash flows to shareholders through large repurchase programs. While not thought of as traditional value stocks (despite having healthy free cash flow yields), I have a very favorable view of the industry broadly.
In order to understand what these companies do, and why it is so difficult to compete with them, a quick look into a semiconductor fabrication facility (a “fab”) is necessary.
Fabs vary in size, but most modern facilities will be at least 250,000 square feet in production space, or around 6 acres. According to Intel, their fabs have 1,200 different tools laid out across the facility, each having a size that ranges from that of a small car to a school bus. These tools print, deposit, etch, clean, and inspect features that are only nanometers in size on a small disk of crystalline silicon, called a wafer. These silicon wafers travel from tool to tool in a sterilized container on an interconnected highway system of rails, intentionally and algorithmically laid out for maximum efficiency. A wafer will be transferred from machine-to-machine thousands of times over a period of three to four months before being completed; any interruption in the process significantly reduces the throughput of the fab and risks contaminating the highly delicate chip-structure with dust and other microscopic debris. The fabs themselves take three to five years to build and are designed around the dimensions of the tools being purchased. All of this is to say that once a tool is in the specifications of the facility, there is no replacing it with a competitor…” (Click here to read the full text)
7. Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 97
Ben Reitzes, Melius Research managing director, recently said in a program on CNBC that Nvidia getting the permission to start selling AI chips in China is also “great” for Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD). He believes AMD could benefit if it manages to get even 5% of the total market share amid a rise in inference.
“Our thesis on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) is I mean how could they—Lisa Su is real. She’s great. She’s very compelling. Nothing against Jensen, but how do they not get like 5% share of the market? Not even 10. If they get 5% of the market in 2028, that’s 25 billion in GPU sales. That’s like 950, 10 bucks in earnings. So, our bet on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) is they have a good product. It’s really good for inferencing and people are going to give them a look. So, we’re hearing, you know, like Meta’s a little more interested in some of the new stuff. X, XAI, OpenAI really interested. So our thesis there now, China for them is it could be like add 20% plus to their AI revenue, but they don’t have—they just have one, the old chip they were selling. We need to hear about more chips to get more confident, but it’s great for Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD). Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for AMD.”
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) bulls believe the market should stop comparing the company’s chips with Nvidia and focus on its data-center growth and its competitive edge over other players like Intel. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)’s strong growth in the data center segment is indeed impressive, driven by Instinct GPU shipments and strong sales of EPYC CPUs. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) will continue to benefit from organic growth catalysts in this segment despite the competition from Nvidia. According to Goldman Sachs Research, global data center demand could surge by 160% by 2030. In the U.S., data centers are projected to use 8% of total power by 2030, up from 3% in 2022. McKinsey estimates that adding the required U.S. capacity will need over $500 billion in infrastructure investment by the decade’s end.
Longriver Partners Fund stated the following regarding Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Nvidia’s NVLink, its high-bandwidth interconnect, underpins training at scale, where GPUs must coordinate across racks. NVLink Fusion, announced this year, may extend that advantage by letting custom chips plug into Nvidia’s system rather than replace it. However, many inference tasks can be handled independently, one GPU at a time. That lowers the importance of networking, and with it, Nvidia’s edge in tightly integrated systems.
This has given Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) a window to become more than a second source. Its MI300X is now deployed at Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, and Dell. In some inference workloads, it beats Nvidia’s H100. As one expert put it, “ROCm used to be a science project. Now we’re finally seeing it run real workloads.” AMD plans to ship full-rack MI400 systems next year. It still trails in training, but inference gives it a real wedge into the market.
AMD is also leaning into openness. ROCm is open source, its interconnects run over Ethernet, not proprietary links, and it is sticking with x86 CPUs. That may appeal to buyers wary of lock-in or reluctant to cross-compile for ARM.”
6. Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 150
Robert Fishman, MoffettNathanson analyst, said in a recent program on CNBC that he’s expecting 30% earnings growth for Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) this year and believes the company can continue to post strong growth in the coming years.
“They’ve raised prices already, so we’re going to continue to see that roll through the results. You know, expecting mid-teens revenue growth and the result of these pricing increases and the early innings ramp up in the advertising monetization of their engagement really allows a lot of these revenue dollars to flow down to the bottom line. So, we’re expecting 30% earnings growth this year and that elevated level of earnings growth to really continue over the next few years which allows for this premium multiple that you were alluding to.”
Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) recently crushed Wall Street estimates for its latest quarter and posted 16% revenue growth, while operating margin climbed to 34.1% from 27.2%. The company raised its full-year revenue forecast to $44.8–$45.2 billion from $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion. The stock is up 44% so far this year.
Netflix’s P/E ratio of 60 is significantly higher than Disney’s and Amazon’s. Amid rising competition and high valuation, the stock could struggle to keep momentum in the absence of new catalysts.
ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), one of the Strategy’s largest active weights, saw its shares rise due to overall continued robust execution with double-digit revenue growth, driven by a balance of subscriber growth and price, and continued margin expansion. We took some profits in the position but remain confident in the company’s long-term strategy, strong market position and attractiveness of the global streaming market.”
5. Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 158
Ben Reitzes, Melius Research managing director, recently said in a program on CNBC that AI chip companies will benefit in the future amid an increase in the usage of LLMs and inference. He thinks “seat-based” business models are under threat from AI.
“Agents are just going to be able to do this. And what it’s going to do is it’s going to reduce your software seats. So seat-based models are threatened and outcome-based models are rewarded. And what that means is like infrastructure software could do better, but it really just means keep buying Nvidia, guys. They’re going to power the AI models. You know, they’re going to win. Maybe keep buying the clouds who are going to host all and deploy it. But the SaaS guys, it’s going to be tough.”
Asked which companies can benefit the most from this trend, the analyst named Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO).
“I mean Broadcom has a great portfolio of infrastructure software and of course they’re leading and doing great.”
Mar Vista U.S. Quality Premier Strategy stated the following regarding Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) shares rebounded from their calendar Q1 decline as investor concerns surrounding Trump-era trade tensions and the risk of suboptimal returns on large-scale AI capex by hyperscalers proved to be overstated. The company delivered a solid fiscal Q2 2025 (April quarter) and guided for accelerating AI semiconductor revenue growth through FY2026.
Broadcom remains the leading provider of custom AI ASICs and continues to diversify its customer base beyond its initial anchor client, Alphabet. It now has three hyperscaler customers in volume production and disclosed that four additional customers are currently designing custom ASICs based on Broadcom’s technology. Management is optimistic that these new design wins will transition to volume production in the coming years. Interest in custom ASICs remains high among hyperscalers, as these chips offer compelling cost and performance advantages over general-purpose GPUs from providers like Nvidia, particularly for specialized compute workloads.”
