We recently published a list of Top 10 Buzzing Stocks in May. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against other top buzzing stocks in May.

The latest quarterly results from a couple of major technology companies have soothed concerns about AI demand that prevailed in the market following the launch of DeepSeek. Storm Uru, Manager at Liontrust Global Dividend Fund, said while talking to CNBC that the Satya Nadella-led tech giant’s results were “extraordinary.”

“50% of that growth came from AI revenue, and that’s an important marker for us going forward. Because after Deepseek about four months ago now, the debate really was around as digital intelligence gets smarter and as it gets cheaper, what is going to be the impact on demand. And what we found out last night was that demand is accelerating,” he said.

David Grain, Founder & CEO of Grain Management, also believes AI demand could be strong amid a variety of factors.

“The advent of AI has created this explosion of demand for data centers and compute power, but the drivers of where it makes sense to actually build these data centers has a lot to do with the availability of reliable and high quantity of electricity. So I think there’s definitely no slowdown in the demand side of the equation,” he said during an interview with CNBC.

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 making moves these days. 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).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 158

Gil Luria, D.A. Davidson managing director, said in a latest program on CNBC ahead of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) quarterly report that his expectations were not high heading into the results. He believes Apple could be among the first companies to feel the heat of a consumer slowdown:

“We’re not expecting a good result or a good outlook. What we’re really hoping for is for Apple to give us visibility and a sense for a stable outlook — that they’ve wrapped their hands around what the impact from tariffs is going to be, and that they can give us an outlook based on that. You just talked a lot about Meta and Microsoft. Those results aren’t just not as bad as feared — those results were actually good. I would not expect that from Apple. Let’s not forget we’re talking about a consumer-driven slowdown, and Apple is the consumer product company. Only later on, a consumer slowdown may lead to an advertising slowdown and maybe eventually to an enterprise technology slowdown. For now, the impact is first going to be felt by Apple, and we want to get our hands around how much of an impact that is tomorrow.”

Apple’s iPhone revenue was above estimates in the latest quarter, but revenue for Services, one of the key pillars of hope for the company’s bulls, came in slightly below estimates. CEO Tim Cook said the company sees a $900 million impact from tariffs in the second quarter, and is unable to predict the effects of duties beyond that.

However, the US and China have reached a truce on tariffs for 90 days. Would this development help the stock?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is desperately in need of new catalysts. The company’s revenue in China fell 8% in fiscal year 2024, following a 2% decline the previous year. The Chinese market accounts for about 15% of Apple’s total revenue, so this downtrend cannot be ignored.

Investors had hopes from the Wearables, Home, and Accessories segment, but so far its performance has been weak. Vision Pro faces tough competition from Meta’s $500 Quest and the more affordable Quest 3S, making it hard to justify its $3,500 price tag. The failure of Apple’s HomePod, unable to compete with Amazon’s and Google’s lower-priced offerings, further highlights the challenges in this market.

Apple’s iPhone 16 has not shown promising growth prospects yet and investors are still in a wait-and-see mode on the AI platform.

Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“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 4th on our list of top buzzing stocks in May. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AAPL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

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