We recently published a list of the 10 Cheap Hot Stocks to Buy Right Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Avis Budget Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CAR) stands against other cheap hot stocks.

Periods of high market volatility can make cheap stocks attractive because sharp price swings may undervalue fundamentally strong growth companies in the short run. This allows selective long-term investors to buy them at a discount and benefit when stability returns and prices recover.  On April 17, AB’s Jim Tierney and Charles Schwab’s Kathy Jones appeared together on CNBC’s ‘Power Lunch’ to discuss how long-term investors should move in the current market. Kathy Jones recommended neglecting the current marked noise and emphasized the importance of sticking to fundamental investment principles during such uncertainty. She advised investors to remain diversified, while keeping in mind their personal risk tolerance and capacity. She says that the current environment is one of considerable uncertainty and volatility, making a conservative, credit-quality-focused fixed income portfolio suitable. Jones thinks that long-term investors seeking income, capital preservation, and diversification from stocks should focus on higher credit quality bonds with a duration of about 5 to 7 years. She believes that this duration can balance earning a fair amount of interest income while minimizing credit risk, volatility, and interest rate risk.

Given the current market uncertainty, Jim Tierney encouraged equity investors to seek and be selective about opportunities available to them right now. He’s optimistic that attractive investment opportunities still exist despite the challenging environment. Tierney also addressed whether the recent market rebound should prompt investors to sell. He argued that for long-term investors, slightly lower prices amid a market that has risen about 90% over 5 years present a better entry point. He cautioned against expecting annual gains of 20% every year, noting that such consistently high returns are unrealistic. He highlighted the potential for companies capable of double-digit growth over the next 5 years to perform well despite tariff uncertainties. He advised focusing on firms that manufacture locally in different countries, so that tariff risks can be avoided. He even thinks that the companies with pricing power would be better off if tariffs were implemented in some form.

Our Methodology

We first sifted through the Finviz stock screener to compile a list of the top cheap stocks with a forward P/E ratio under 15 as of April 16. Then we picked the 10 hot stocks with highest gains over the past 1 month (over 15%), that were the most popular among elite hedge funds and that analysts were bullish on. The stocks are ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds that have stakes in them, as of Q4 2024. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database, which tracks the moves of over 900 elite money managers.

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).

Avis Budget Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CAR)

Forward P/E Ratio as of April 16: 3.39

Gain Over the Past 1 Month: 22.79%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 35

Avis Budget Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CAR) provides car and truck rentals, car sharing, and ancillary products & services to businesses and consumers. It operates the Avis brand, which offers vehicle rental and other mobility solutions to the premium commercial & leisure segments of the travel industry. It also offers the Zipcar brand for car sharing, and the Budget brand for supplying several mobility solutions.

In Q4 2024, the Americas generated over $2.1 billion in revenue for the company. Avis‘ total revenue for 2024 was $2.7 billion. Vehicle utilization in the region was strong in Q4 at over 67%, which was more than 2 points higher year-over-year. This comes from maximizing revenue during peak leisure periods, with Christmas in the US being a record. Pricing was down 2% in Q4 year-over-year, but it showed sequential improvement throughout the quarter.

The company started Q1 2025 with substantially fewer cars than in 2024 and will continue to exit older vehicles while rotating in the more cost-effective 2025 models. This rotation resulted in a non-cash impairment in Q4 2024 and is expected to have lingering effects on fleet costs in Q1 2025, with an expected all-in fleet cost per unit per month of ~$400 for the total company. Avis expects a drop in these costs to under $350 in Q2 and around $300 by year-end.

Overall, CAR ranks 2nd on our list of the cheap hot stocks to buy right now. While we acknowledge the growth potential of CAR, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high 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 CAR 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.