In this article, we will take a detailed look at the Top 10 Buzzing Stocks You Should Watch Today.
Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC expressed surprise that the Republican administration could be this damaging to shareholders
“These are hideous depressing days for the bulls. I’m not used to seeing a White House that doesn’t seem to care that it’s causing the decline. It’s dazzlingly counterintuitive to see a Republican in particular be so callous toward the shareholder class. After all historically that constituency has been very pro-Republican. It’s a total blast zone out there and ground zero is tech.”
Cramer said that the tech selloff forced him to revisit his age-old mantra of “own it, don’t trade it” regarding two major technology stocks.
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 Wall Street analysts are paying close attention to. With each company, we have mentioned its latest hedge fund sentiment. 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. Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 31
Jim Cramer was recently asked about Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN). He recommended investors stay away from the stock:
“Go test drive one. Don’t own the stock. I really don’t have that much more to say about it, ’cause I do think that they went through so much money that it is daunting. How about that? Daunting is a nice word. I’m looking at my research director, and he knows when I say daunting, what I really mean is horrible.”
9. Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 49
Jim Cramer was recently asked about Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL) during a program on CNBC. Here is what Cramer said:
“It’s just a total turnoff, man. Everything was going so well between us, and I got to break up this date right now, right here. Estee Lauder is one of the worst companies I’ve ever invested in. I don’t want you to do that. As a matter of fact, I got 499 others that I like more. I am very sorry, but we’re gonna have to end the relationship right here.”
Brown Advisors Global Leaders Strategy stated the following regarding The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Our exit of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL) has been a topic at both our coaching sessions and our annual offsite during 2024. There are numerous lessons but here’s one from Jordet’s book: “performing under pressure is not about feeling good; it is about doing what is right and smart regardless of how one feels, and particularly when one feels bad.” 12 We undertook our first penalty shootout (drawdown review) in May 2023 and misdiagnosed Estee’s issues as temporary demand in nature, so we bought more. Whenever we buy on a drawdown review, we define quantifiable metrics (kill triggers) specific to each investment, to flag if our thesis is off track. These “kill triggers” are typically assigned with a 12-month time horizon in mind. When we subsequently needed to take a second spot-kick after our kill triggers were activated, we exited due to evidence of more permanent supply-side loss of share to rivals in multiple markets. It didn’t feel good, but Estee’s share price fell materially more after our exit. You must trust the process.”
8. Honeywell International Inc (NASDAQ:HON)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 55
Jim Cramer believes Honeywell International Inc (NASDAQ:HON) is undervalued and praised the company’s management in a recent program on CNBC. Here is what Cramer said when he was asked about the industrial and aerospace solutions company:
“Jeff and I talked about this endlessly. We think the stock is dramatically undervalued. We think that Vimal Kapur is doing everything right. We could not believe how low the stock got. I am a firm believer and a buyer of Honeybell even at these levels. Yes, I like it that much. It was down 8% last week. That’s nutty.”
7. Shopify Inc (NASDAQ:SHOP)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 56
Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC said he’s bullish on Shopify Inc (NASDAQ:SHOP) and recommended investors hold the stock:
“Better than ever, the Shopmaster. I think it’s great. Harley (Shopify President) is great. I love those guys. I think you got a total winner. I would not trade it. I would not move a share. Shopify, yes.”
Artisan Global Opportunities Fund stated the following regarding Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top Q4 contributors were Atlassian and Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP). Our conviction in Shopify grew after it decided to exit the logistics business in favor of a capital-light partnership model, which we viewed as significantly narrowing the downside range of outcomes and allowed it to focus on what it does so well: developing great e-commerce software solutions for brands of all sizes. We have been encouraged by Shopify’s subsequent pace of innovative new product enhancements, including using AI assistants to help brands run their businesses. Shares rallied after the company reported strong earnings results, including 24% growth in gross merchandise volume, and management raised its forward guidance.”
6. Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE:VZ)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 57
Jim Cramer in a recent program discussed a research report on Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE:VZ) and said the company is among the beneficiaries in the current environment amid its local customer base.
“I’m putting together a list every day of the companies that are now I’m calling the anointed company. You can call them the sainted companies. These are the companies that are what you have to buy here. And David, one that I think you and I are both kind of in awe is the turnaround of Verizon. Today Evercore upgrades it.”
Verizon beat Wall Street estimates for its latest quarterly results for earnings and revenue, but the stock wavered as the company lost more postpaid subscribers than expected. However, VZ bulls believe the market reaction to subscriber loss was overdone. The company’s guidance shows wireless service revenue is set to rise 2% to 2.8% from a year earlier. The company also sees profit margins improving, with adjusted EBITDA forecast to grow 2% to 3.5%. EPS could increase by as much as 3%, and free cash flow is projected between $17.5 billion and $18.5 billion.
5. Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 69
Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC made some bullish comments about Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO), praising the company’s management and calling the stock a “winner.”
“I love that. I think it’s James Quincey is terrific. It’s got a good dividend, it’s really well-run, it’s got an international presence, but at the same time is not has a China problem, and it’s doing well in this environment. You have a winner.”
4. Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 86
A caller recently asked Jim Cramer on CNBC about Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK) and said he’s unable to decide what to do with his position in the company amid lackluster performance. Here is what Cramer said in response:
“You’re not alone. It has turned in just a complete nightmare. I think that if you buy Merk at a 4% yield, though, you’re going to do well. I feel for what you’re doing, Bob. It is remarkable how poorly this stock acts. I do want you to stay the course with it right at this point, and I’m sorry because it has been a real tough one.”
3. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 99
Steve Westly, The Westly Group founder & managing partner, said in a recent program on CNBC that Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) Q1 delivery data showed a “stark” contrast to the broader industry, where EV sales are growing. The analyst believes the Elon Musk-led company needs a growth catalyst soon:
“You can’t go on forever without showing growth in profits, and look, this is a rough quarter for Tesla, and they may not have hit rock bottom yet. Big miss on deliveries—337,000 vehicles versus an estimate of 380,000. That’s a 13% decrease, and it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the world. EVs grew 29% year-over-year, Tesla’s shrank 13%. So that’s why the share price has dropped 50% from a December high of 1.5 trillion, down now to just over 700 billion. It’s hard to lose $800 billion in shareholder value without investors getting a little worried. Now analysts expect a flat Q1, revenues probably 21.5 billion. That could be lower revenues for 2025, and if you want to be valued as a flashy high-tech company, you need the growth to go with it. Punch line: Tesla needs to find a new growth engine soon.”
Tesla’s EV sales are falling all over the world as the company faces challenges from competitors. Even if Elon Musk increases his focus to fix the company’s problems, it would take a lot of effort to come out of the demand crisis. For example, in California, the largest U.S. market for electric vehicle adoption and sales, Tesla sales fell about 12% year over year in 2024, causing its market share to drop from 60.1% in 2023 to 52.5% in 2024. Was it because Californians are buying fewer EVs? No. Californians purchased more than 2 million electric cars during the year, almost double when compared to the past two years.
Things aren’t looking good for Tesla in Europe, either. For example, in Germany, Tesla delivered just 1,429 new cars in February, down 76% from the same month last year. In contrast, battery-electric vehicle (BEV) registrations surged 30.8% during the month.
Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) product lineup is showing signs of stagnation, with over 95% of sales still coming from the Model 3 and Model Y. Meanwhile, competitors are rolling out more advanced models. According to Reuters, Tesla’s market share in Europe is slipping as legacy automakers like BMW post stronger sales. Chinese competitor BYD is also gaining ground in Europe, despite talk of tariffs.
ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“Our active underweight to the Magnificent Seven added more than 100 basis points to relative returns for the quarter, with underweights to EV maker Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Google parent Alphabet being among the largest relative contributors. We added to both positions, taking advantage of what we view as short-term weakness as Alphabet missed high expectations for cloud revenue growth in its latest quarter, while Tesla worked through negative sentiment over CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration.”
2. NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 193
Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC said major companies like NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) are seeing the effects of tariffs amid their huge exposure to China. Cramer believes the company is being “punished” for doing business with the Asian country, which he believes is hostile to the US:
“I was working on my talk for the CNBC Investing Club last night, and it hit me like a bright bulb snapped on in a dark room. The real reason it is so hard for us to gain all these tariffs is that the company’s now being punished. We’re doing exactly what companies were supposed to do.”
The market will keep punishing Nvidia for not coming up to its gigantic (and sometimes unrealistic) growth expectations. About 50% of the company’s revenue comes from large cloud providers, which are rethinking their plans amid the DeepSeek launch and looking for low-cost chips.
Nvidia is facing challenges at several levels. Competition is one of them. Major competitors like Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD are vying for TSMC’s 3nm capacity, which could limit Nvidia’s access to these chips. Why? Because Nvidia also uses TSMC’s 3nm process nodes. Nvidia is also facing direct competition from other giants that are deciding to make their own chips. Amazon, with its Trainium2 AI chips, offers alternatives. Trainium2 chips could provide cost savings and superior computational power, which could shift AI workloads away from Nvidia’s offerings. Apple is reportedly working with Broadcom to develop an AI server processor. Intel is also trying hard to get back into the game with Jaguar Shores GPU, set to be produced on its 18A or 14A node.
Here is how Cramer explained what NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is going through in the tariff wars:
“No country wants to be left behind by the industrial revolution, particularly one based on AI, right? And no country like China wants to be left behind. For Nvidia, China is the best kind of customer they could possibly have. I’m sure that China would happily buy huge numbers of chips. They’d probably buy all the chips. But what Nvidia didn’t know was that it was selling its chips to an enemy nation. I don’t blame them for not knowing because nobody knew, at least nobody was operating under the rules of either President Biden or the previous president, President Trump. China was very open for business under those two. Sure, in his first term, President Trump was no friend to the People’s Republic of China, but he wasn’t a rabid hater either. Then again, China did grow more opposition, although it’s not like it was ever a secret that the PRC was an authoritarian dictatorship with global ambitions, sometimes antithetical to that of our own. Both parties now want to contain China.”
Alger Spectra Fund stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a leading supplier of graphics processing units (GPUs) for a variety of end markets, such as gaming, PCs, data centers, virtual reality, and high-performance computing. The company is leading in most secular growth categories in computing, and especially artificial intelligence and super-computing parallel processing techniques for solving complex computational problems. In our view, Nvidia’s computational power is a critical enabler of AI and therefore essential to AI adoption. During the quarter, shares detracted from performance due to several factors. In January 2025, investor concerns grew regarding the emergence of advanced AI models from China, reportedly developed at lower costs and with reduced computing requirements, raising doubts about Nvidia’s market dominance. Additionally, U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of new tariffs targeting industries increased worries about higher operational costs. Despite these headwinds, Nvidia reported robust fiscal fourth-quarter results, highlighted by significant revenue growth driven by its data center segment. On the earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the increasing computational requirements of future AI models, noting, “The more computation, the more the model thinks, the smarter the answer,” and adding that future reasoning models could demand substantially more compute resources. We believe Nvidia’s leadership in scaling AI infrastructure—including advancements in inference and reasoning during inference—continues to drive adoption among enterprises and startups, ensuring sustained demand for its high performance chips and software solutions. As older-generation chips are repurposed and new clusters deployed, we see Nvidia as well-positioned to capitalize on rising computational needs across AI applications.”
1. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 158
Scott Wapner, CNBC’s Halftime Report host, said in a latest program that he was informed that Jim Cramer is having second thoughts about his age-old manta of ‘own, don’t trade’ Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).
“When I sat down on this desk moments before our program, our senior producer sent me a note that Jim Cramer has just put out that says, quote, I’m wavering on quote unquote own don’t trade Apple. That it’s now harder to defend Apple stock in the trade war.That’s significant coming from somebody like Jim, who has made the case for literally as long as I can remember. And I have these words in my head, own don’t trade Apple, because he says it so often. But this, this is different. The game’s different. The goalpost have moved,” Wapner said before asking a question to an analyst about the iPhone maker.”
Many analysts believe that just a few AI apps would not be enough to trigger a broader upgrade cycle for iPhone. Apple is dealing with currency headwinds as the stronger US dollar is expected to reduce top-line growth by 2.5% next quarter. For Q2 FY2025, management expects overall revenue to grow in the low to mid-single digits. Apple’s stock is trading at a premium valuation, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 39-40x, a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of 33-34x, and a PEG ratio exceeding 3x. Upcoming quarters would be difficult for Apple and its current valuation is not justified.
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.”
While we acknowledge the potential of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) as an investment, 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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