We recently published a list of 10 Best AI Stocks to Buy According to Carolina Panthers Owner Billionaire David Tepper. Since Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) ranks 6th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.

Billionaire David Tepper stands out amongst American hedge fund managers for his two recent moves: his bet on Chinese stocks despite their volatility and underperformance and his early arrival at the AI party.

David Tepper’s passion for investing goes all the way back to his high-school days. He once recalled:

“I remember my dad had made some small investments in a few companies, so I would track them and see how he was doing.”

Tepper bought his first stock when he was in high school — 100 shares of a $2 stock, “but then the whole thing went bankrupt,” he said.

 “It was a bad investment, but that didn’t deter me.”

Today, Tepper is worth about $20 billion. He was piling into AI stocks when they were just getting started. This wasn’t a fluke or a one-off success from the billionaire. Data from Bloomberg shows that Tepper has posted annualized returns of 28% for investors, before fees. In 2022, when markets were tumbling amid inflation storm and rising interest rates, Appaloosa returned 12.5%. Tepper’s instincts and grip over financial markets were strong even when he was in his late 20s and 30s, raking in huge profits for Goldman Sachs, which he’d joined in 1985.

Tepper rose to fame at Goldman when his portfolio stood out in the midst of the market crash of 1987.

According to The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World’s Top Hedge Funds, written by Maneet Ahuja, Tepper recalled:

 “Going into the crash I had set up my entire portfolio as just short—I had no long positions. I made a fortune during and after the crash,” he says with a chuckle. “It was very cool.” Unfortunately, the rest of the firm didn’t do as well. “I still got a raise but not as much as I should have.”

Tepper’s fund Appaloosa Management has released its latest holdings data and it’s time to see which AI stocks are in the billionaire’s portfolio. 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL)

Billionaire David Tepper’s Stake: $282,400,000

According to CNBC, an analyst at Bernstein recently gave bullish commentary about Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL).

“The best mix of downside protection and upside opportunity driven by idiosyncratic growth acceleration at a reasonable valuation,” the analyst reportedly said of Oracle.

Dan Ives of Wedbush is also bullish on the stock following the AI revolution and its trickle-down effects. Ives named Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) among the stocks he thinks could benefit from the AI wave.

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) earlier this month posted weak fiscal Q4 results, but the stock remained steady after the company said it signed multiple AI deals with leading horses in the industry.  Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) said it reached a deal with OpenAI and Microsoft to extend Azure Al platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to provide additional capacity for OpenAl. Oracle also revealed a partnership with Google after which Google Cloud will offer Oracle Cloud Infrastructure database services and high-speed network interconnect.

Despite the weak fiscal Q4 results, Oracle’s Cloud business was strong. Cloud infrastructure (IaaS) revenue jumped 42% year over year.  For fiscal first quarter, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) expects its revenue to rise by 6% to 8% in constant currency, while adjusted EPS growth is expected in the range of 11% and 15%. One of the metrics in Oracle’s Q4 report that impressed the Street was Remaining Performance Obligations (RPOs), which surged 44% YoY in the period. Management expects 39% of this amount to come in the next twelve months. Oracle’s Cloud is exposed to the IaaS market, which is projected to grow to $738.11 billion by 2032, according to some estimates. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) management said the company is building data centers and analysts believe the company’s automated OCI services will grow amid rising demand. Given Oracle’s partnerships with major AI players and its dominance in the niche OCI market, it’s forward P/E ratio of 22.03 looks attractive when compared to peers.

Mar Vista Global Strategy stated the following regarding Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

“Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is seeing revenue acceleration as it benefits from several years of investing in cloud-based solutions that are now driving demand. Oracle’s OCI offering is recognized as a viable hyper scaler offering and is winning mindshare from leading cloud customers including Open AI. This is driving accelerating demand as it offers a strong value proposition to customers due to its favorable performance and cost metrics. This coupled with Oracle’s recently announced partnerships with Microsoft Azure and Google Compute Platform, which could help facilitate the migration of the Oracle Database to the cloud. We believe this should support a third leg of growth for Oracle as its large installed base of database customers shift from on-premise to cloud deployments. As database customers migrate to the cloud, Oracle could increase database software support revenues by two-to-three times. We continue to believe Oracle is well positioned to grow intrinsic value low-double-digits over our investment horizon.”

Overall, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) ranks 6th on Insider Monkey’s list titled 10 Best AI Stocks to Buy According to Carolina Panthers Owner Billionaire David Tepper. While we acknowledge the potential of Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL), our conviction lies in the belief that 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 ORCL 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.