We recently compiled a list of the 11 Best Feminist Stocks To Invest In. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) stands against the other feminist stocks.

With the passage of time, the role of women in the modern day workplace has slowly started to grow. In less than a century, more women not only lead companies but are also among some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. At the same time, women have demonstrated that they are equal to men when it comes to disrupting industries. One of the best examples of this phenomena is America’s best known rocket company SpaceX. While SpaceX is famous for its founder and billionaire Elon Musk, the firm’s chief operations officer and president Gwynne Shotwell has been equally responsible for its massive success in the rocket industry which has dislodged decades of monopolies held by a few defense contractors.

In fact, this rising trend of women leading the charge at some of the biggest companies in the world has also generated interesting statistics when it comes to compensation. Data from Equilar shows that in 2023, out of the 341 CEOs part of the study, 25 were women. Their median pay package stood at $17.6 million, which according to Equilar, was 7.7% higher than the figure for the complete data set. At the same time, the 25 female CEOs saw five new executives added to the list when compared to 2022.

Considering this, it would appear that the gender pay gap in the US appears to be narrowing. To confirm this, we’ll have to look at the pay statistics for the entire country as opposed to only S&P 500 CEOs. Well, on this front, data gathered by Pew shows that there’s a lot to be done. The research firm points out that in 2002, women earned 80% of what men were paid. Two decades later, i.e. in 2022, this stood at 82%, indicating that there’s a lot more to be done to decrease the wage gap between the two genders. However, at the same time, younger women might be changing these trends. This is because according to Pew, women aged between 25 and 34 earned 92% of their male counterparts, which is quite higher than the figure of 86% in 2002.

With these details in mind, we decided to take a look at the best feminist stocks to invest in.

Our Methodology

To make our list of the best feminist stocks to invest in, we ranked publicly traded Fortune 500 companies with female CEOs by the number of hedge funds that had bought the shares in Q1 2024. Why do we care about what hedge funds do? 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).

Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX)

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders In Q1 2024: 66

CEO: Adaire Fox-Martin

Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) is a specialized real estate company that enables businesses to secure space to set up their data centers. CEO Adaire Fox-Martin was brought on board in March 2024, and she previously worked at Google. Soon after her appointment was announced, well known short seller Hindenburg Research was out with a short seller report alleging accounting manipulations at the firm. However, in June Stifel stuck with a Buy rating and a $920 share price target for Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX). It shared that AI demand could prove to be a growth catalyst and investigations by the SEC and the DOJ into Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX)’s affairs are likely to yield favorable results.

Given the fact that Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) sits smack in the middle of the AI industry through its data center offerings, a forward P/E ratio of 64.52 is unsurprising. It is 3x the S&P’s 21, and firmly places the stock into the growth category. Baron Funds mentioned Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) in its Q1 2024 investor letter and shared:

Following strong relative and absolute performance in 2023, we reduced our position in leading global data center operator, Equinix, Inc., due to the Fund’s large position size and other compelling new investment ideas that we have been identifying. Equinix continues to be a core position in the Fund, and we remain optimistic about the long-term growth prospects for the company due to its interconnection focus among a highly curated customer ecosystem developed over the past 20-plus years, strong demand and pricing power, favorable supply backdrop, and evolving incremental demand vectors such as AI. We believe Equinix can continue to compound earnings at approximately 10% over the next few years and believe the prospects for strong shareholder returns remain compelling.

Overall EQIX ranks 7th on our list of the best feminist stocks to buy. You can visit 11 Best Feminist Stocks To Invest In to see the other feminist stocks that are on hedge funds’ radar. While we acknowledge the potential of EQIX as an AI play, our conviction lies in the belief that some 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 EQIX 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.