In this article, we will take a detailed look at the Top 10 Trending Stocks Everyone’s Watching in Q4.
AI bubble warnings are growing on Wall Street as major technology companies continue to pour billions into AI projects and partnerships. Investors are now looking to upcoming tech earnings to see if these companies remain committed to their heavy AI spending plans.
AZ-VC Managing Partner Jack Selby said in a recent interview on Bloomberg that there’s a lot of “breathless storytelling” in the AI space where companies are making big promises. The analyst warned that the AI bubble could pop and wipe out billions of dollars from Wall Street. However, he believes there will be many companies that will end up being successful in the AI boom.
“I think there will be companies that when the dust settles, will survive and do quite well. And I’m sure OpenAI has a good chance of being one of those companies and many other prominent companies as well. But at the same time, there will be many, many other companies that will just not survive.”
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10. Ventas Inc (NYSE:VTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 43
Morningstar’s Dave Sekera said in a latest program on Schwab Network that investors are not paying attention to non-AI stocks as their focus remains on growth. The analyst warned that incessant focus on AI and growth could come at a cost
“I’m really thinking that as a long-term investor trying to switch gears, look for those other areas of the marketplace that have been left behind, other areas that do have some good themes behind them like the real estate market, but yet really just no one in the market is paying attention to any of these value names. Everyone’s still all about growth, which I think will probably be to their detriment over time.”
Sekera said he likes healthcare REIT Ventas Inc (NYSE:VTR).
“If you look at like some of the healthcare REITs, so Ventas Inc (NYSE:VTR) is one that we’ve been highlighting recently. You know, four-star rated stock, 12% discount, trading with a very nice, you know, dividend yield.”
Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy stated the following regarding Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“As volatility picked up sharply in the quarter, we were active in the portfolio — and we anticipate that as volatility continues into Q2, we will likewise attempt to capitalize on compelling opportunities to reposition the portfolio for the period ahead. We initiated four new positions in Q1: Martin Marietta Materials, Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR), Illumina and TransUnion.
Ventas is a diversified health care real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on private-pay senior housing — primarily independent and assisted living — as well as outpatient medical offices and research/life sciences. The demographics around senior housing are compelling over the medium term: The 80+ age cohort in the US is rapidly growing, while senior housing is limited, which should drive years of strong growth as the industry recovers from oversupply and post-COVID weakness. We anticipate occupancy should improve meaningfully, while pricing is likely to remain solid as senior care is a needs-based business. At approximately 85% occupancy, a facility generally requires full staffing, making additional tenants beyond that occupancy level significantly higher margin. We also don’t anticipate significant new facility development — and even when it starts, it could take some time before annual new construction catches up with demand. Further, recently weaker fundamentals among competitors could create attractive acquisition opportunities for Ventas. Finally, the company’s operating platform and pricing software should bring institutional sophistication to a business that has long been tech-averse, giving it a significant and growing competitive advantage. Given we don’t believe the valuation adequately reflects these advantages, we initiated a position in Q1.”
9. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 67
Morningstar’s Dave Sekera said in a recent program on Schwab Network that BMY is one of the top deep value stocks today. The analyst mentioned the stock’s dividend yield and valuation:
“Well, one of the kind of biggest deep value names today is going to be in healthcare, and that’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY). So, it’s a five-star rated stock. That’s our highest rating, trading at a 33% discount to fair value. Nice big fat dividend yield at 5.6%. And the name trades at under eight times our earnings estimates this year. Now, they do have some difficulties. They do have a number of patents that will be coming off expiration in the next couple years. We’ve already incorporated that into our modeling. But when we look at their pipeline, we don’t think the market is giving them really any credit for their existing pipeline. Any of those were to hit in the next couple years or if they get like some label expansion on some of their existing drugs, we think that there’s a lot of value in that name.”
PGIM Jennison Health Sciences Fund stated the following regarding Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) is a global pharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and marketing drugs across multiple therapeutic areas, including Cardiovascular Disease, Oncology, Hematology, and Immunology. BMY currently has three key mega-blockbuster franchises that will lose patent expiry over the next decade: Revlimid which started facing limited generic competition in 2022 and will face full generic entry in 2026; Eliquis, which was part of the first round of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) negotiations last year, with price cuts effective on Jan 1, 2026, and will face generic entry in 2028/29; and Opdivo, which faces biosimilar competition starting in 2029, although BMY aims to preserve part of the franchise with the recent launch of a subcutaneous formulation that eliminates the need for an Intravenous (IV) infusion. We initiated a position in BMY last spring as the stock seemed deeply undervalued and we had above market expectations for their neuropsychiatric Cobenfy, the main asset acquired in the Karuna deal. We took profits earlier in 2025 as the stock had rallied and closed much of the valuation disconnect; we subsequently sold more well above current levels as we were skeptical about recent readouts due to concerns over trial design, bringing us underweight the name. Our skepticism was borne out with a pair of negative updates on Camzyos and Cobenfy, and coupled with a slightly disappointing quarter, these updates have caused the stock to decline. We exited the last of our position following 1Q earnings.”
8. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 75
Stephanie Link, Hightower Advisors chief investment strategist and portfolio manager, said in a recent program on CNBC that she believes there’s more upside for Wells Fargo.
“I think there is more upside in Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC). I happen to own Wells Fargo because I think again as they invest more in their business, as they can grow their deposits across many different lines of business, they will see more profitability and market share, and so that’s why I think that one is quite interesting.”
Mairs & Power Balanced Fund stated the following regarding Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) outperformed as the expectation of a recession has diminished and a trend toward deregulation should benefit the banking and payments sectors. Wells Fargo further benefited as several consent decrees, which outline specific reforms and improvements, were lifted by various regulators. The most impactful of these was the Fed’s restriction on growth, which was unprecedented and lasted seven years. With these restrictions being largely lifted, the company is now in a much better position for future growth.”
7. Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 113
Stacy Rasgon, Bernstein U.S. semiconductor managing director and senior analyst, said in a recent program on CNBC that AMD CEO Lisa Su signed a deal with OpenAI to “be on the rocket ship” of the Sam Altman-led company.
“The Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) one raises a little more eyebrows. AMD actually gave OpenAI they gave them equity like in return for being allowed to sell them stuff. Although I kind of understand that as well. Like a AMD I mean Lisa has to be on the OpenAI rocket ship. It really is OpenAI and Altman that’s driving a lot of this. And if Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) is not there, they completely lose out. So Lisa had to get on that rocket ship as any way she could. She bought her ticket. It’s working. Like I’m not going to knock them. Like their is going up. But I would read that in some sense in terms of like the relative competitiveness of the products. It’s like nobody else had to, you know, give up something in return for the privilege of selling to.”
Macquarie Core Equity Fund stated the following regarding Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) designs and manufactures semiconductors, including central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and other high-performance computing solutions for various markets like gaming, data centers, and AI. The company currently maintains a small market share for GPUs used for AI applications though by 2027, we believe the company will have product on par with the market leader, NVIDIA. Hyperscale customers with deep programming expertise may increasingly decide to dual-source high-end chips leading to much larger revenue and profit gains in coming years for AMD than investors currently expect.”
6. Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 156
Stacy Rasgon, Bernstein U.S. semiconductor managing director and senior analyst, said in a recent program on CNBC that the AI rally is expected to continue and he doesn’t see a downturn or “air pocket” even in 2027. The analyst said he continues to like high-quality semiconductor stocks, including Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO).
“There’s a lot of cross investments and things like that where it’s sort of tying them all together. They’ll all, you know, sink or swim, I guess in one piece at some point. In terms of, you know, what we’d like, my general call this year has mostly been own the high quality AI names and ignore most of the rest. And by and large, like that’s kind of worked. Like we’ve liked Nvidia, we’ve liked Broadcom. You know, I still think that the AI cycle, I think we’re still early. I think it’s still got legs and all of these new deals that we’ve been seeing announced, you know, they actually I think have the effect of extending it even longer. Most of these don’t even start to ship until the end of next year. So, if you’re worried about, you know, air pockets or digestion or anything like that, it’s clearly not this year. It doesn’t seem like it’s next year. And if these big projects don’t even start to ship until the end of next year, it’s probably not 2027 either. I think we’ve got some runway on this still. So, we still like those high quality AI names.”
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“In early August we initiated positions in both NVIDIA and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO), after having not owned either company over the past 2½ years following the initial wave of enthusiasm around Gen AI. While we have long admired both companies, their highly cyclical business models have made it extremely difficult to forecast future earnings growth with any degree of conviction. Given our approach of seeking durable and persistent earnings growth that compounds over long holding periods, our concern in holding either was that we would be forced to endure a punishing downcycle within our typical holding period – there is very little room that in a concentrated portfolio of 20-30 companies. In fact, pre ChatGPT, NVIDIA had two punishing down cycles over the preceding five years.
That is specifically what has occurred for NVIDIA and Broadcom. While the sheer magnitude of demand for AI chips, servers and networking equipment was something that we clearly underappreciated, new incremental data points over the past few months lead us to conclude the current boom in AI chips and related hardware will likely continue for the foreseeable future giving us greater conviction over the trajectory of future earnings for both NVIDIA and Broadcom.
Broadcom is the other major player in the AI chip market, the number one provider of custom chips, and currently receives the majority of the remaining 10c of every dollar being spent by enterprises. As Gen AI use cases mature, and as inference workloads become a bigger piece of the compute pie, we expect that custom chips (and Broadcom’s in particular) will account for a larger share of the total market. …” (Click here to read the full text)
5. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 178
Stacy Rasgon, Bernstein U.S. semiconductor managing director and senior analyst, was recently asked on CNBC about his thoughts on concerns of an AI bubble. The analyst said he remains on the bullish side of the AI trade and explained that companies are already starting to see returns on their investments. Rasgon gave the example of Alphabet during the discussion:
“You have to remember the folks that are building this stuff out. And this is one other difference maybe from say 2021. The companies that are doing the bulk of the spending are some of the most well-funded and most profitable businesses that humanity has ever developed. And they’re not idiots, right? And they can see things that we can’t. And they’ve also got other businesses that they’re running this stuff through that they’re already getting returns on. Google’s getting returns on the stuff that is getting returns.”
Oakmark Equity and Income Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was the top contributor during the quarter. The technology conglomerate’s stock price appreciated following a favorable ruling in the Google Search antitrust case and second-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations across the board. Innovations in the Google Search experience are driving both engagement and revenue benefits. Moreover, Cloud growth is accelerating thanks to robust demand for AI workloads. We continue to believe Alphabet is undervalued on a sum-of-the parts basis and see potential for the company’s AI leadership to drive further upside across the portfolio.”
4. JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 124
Stephanie Link, Hightower Advisors chief investment strategist and portfolio manager, said in a recent program on CNBC that she likes JPM. Here’s why:
“I mean, my goodness, it was a great quarter. It’s just that the stock is up 28% and it’s not cheap at 2.5 times book, but I mean you had investment banking fees up 17%. Trading up 24%. Equities up 33%. Thick business up 21% and their deal making fees were up 16%. So I mean it was really good across the board. It’s just had a nice run. So, I think if these stocks are weak today for any reason, you know, macro-wise, I think you buy them.”
Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund stated the following regarding JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) contributed to performance as a result of renewed investor optimism about deregulation and a rebound in capital markets activity. Moreover, all large cap banks easily passed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) stress test and are now in a better position to deliver substantial share repurchases and dividend increases.”
3. Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 124
Morningstar’s Dave Sekera said in a recent program on Schwab Network that Oracle’s eye-popping guidance caught his attention. Here is why:
“Well, it’s funny. So, on my podcast a couple weeks ago, I was joking, you know, with my co-host there that I’m starting to get kind of these, you know, mid 90s, late 90s kind of vibes. Really what caught my attention was Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) when they came out with their guidance for their cloud business doing 10 billion of revenue last year, doing 17 to 18 billion this year but increasing it 14-fold by 2030 to 144 billion, really just an eye-opener. And again, it’s not like there aren’t other people—you’ve already got Amazon, you’ve got Microsoft, you got Google in that cloud business as well, so already a lot of competition. So when I’m seeing those kinds of numbers put up out there, really trying to understand how much revenue, how much efficiency is there going to be over the course of the next decade to really support the amount of capital that we’re putting in there today. So, to some degree, when I’m looking at our AI names, based on our base case, they’re pretty fully valued.”
Headwaters Capital Management stated the following regarding Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“The catalyst for the September AI trade was Oracle Corporation’s (NYSE:ORCL) announcement of a 5-year contract with OpenAI for $300B (implying annual contract value of $60B) to host the company’s LLMs at Oracle data centers beginning in 2027. While the market has grown desensitized to these large headline numbers, it’s useful to step back and put these figures into context from the perspective of both the magnitude of spending and return on investment. It’s easiest to start with the amount of investment that five companies are collectively spending on AI. The table below outlines CAPEX spending by the five hyperscalers and compares it with the other 495 companies in the S&P 500. In 2026, these five hyperscaler companies are expected to spend $405B of CAPEX, nearly all of this related to AI infrastructure build.
In terms of the economics around this investment, details have emerged from the Oracle-OpenAI announcement that can help investors begin to untangle the economics of these contracts. It’s easiest to unpack this from the perspective of each of the players involved.
Committed to spending $60B annually with Oracle to host the Company’s LLMs. This annual expense represents the Company’s cost of goods sold for running LLMs. OpenAI is on track to generate $13B of revenue in 2025 (Source: Reuters and the Information). So just to cover the cost of operating their LLMs on this single contract, OpenAI needs revenue to grow 4.6x in 2 years, or a +115% CAGR over the next 2 years. This is a single contract for hosting services. OpenAI has numerous other hosting contracts, implying that the company needs revenue to significantly exceed $60B just to cover the company’s total cost of goods sold…” (Click here to read the full text)
2. NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 235
Jared Bernstein, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research policy fellow and former Biden CEA chairman, said in a recent opinion piece that we are in an AI bubble. In an interview with CNBC, Bernstein said that while companies like NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) are seeing real demand for chips, a bubble burst could impact a lot of retail investors who are entering the AI trade.
“The thing we’re concerned about is not so much that these companies, especially NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), can’t defend their investments. It’s the extent to which regular mom and pop investors are getting into this bubble in a way that’s should it pop, if it pops, we could have a really large negative wealth effect. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the idea that you gain a dollar in stock market wealth, you spend an extra three cents. That’s the wealth effect. So what really took down the economy in the dot-com bubble was in part a wealth effect which was actually quite small. Any contraction in GDP there was minimal. This is a lot bigger. So we’re worried about the extent of investment relative to where we were back then and the extent to which should it pop it will hurt consumer spending, which kind of feeds into some already underlying fragilities in the real economy.”
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“In early August we initiated positions in both NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Broadcom, after having not owned either company over the past 2½ years following the initial wave of enthusiasm around Gen AI. While we have long admired both companies, their highly cyclical business models have made it extremely difficult to forecast future earnings growth with any degree of conviction. Given our approach of seeking durable and persistent earnings growth that compounds over long holding periods, our concern in holding either was that we would be forced to endure a punishing downcycle within our typical holding period – there is very little room that in a concentrated portfolio of 20-30 companies. In fact, pre ChatGPT, NVIDIA had two punishing down cycles over the preceding five years.
That is specifically what has occurred for NVIDIA and Broadcom. While the sheer magnitude of demand for AI chips, servers and networking equipment was something that we clearly underappreciated, new incremental data points over the past few months lead us to conclude the current boom in AI chips and related hardware will likely continue for the foreseeable future giving us greater conviction over the trajectory of future earnings for both NVIDIA and Broadcom.
NVIDIA produces the fastest chips that are able to process compute intensive tasks like Gen AI training models extremely efficiently, are very flexible so can be used for any type of workload, and as a result are the chips in highest demand as the hyperscalers build out their Gen AI infrastructure (NVIDIA currently receiving 90c of every dollar spent on AI accelerated semiconductors). Their business has a very strong competitive moat, which is partly about the speed of their chips, but also the entire ecosystem they have built around them (programing language, training models and associated network effects)…” (Click here to read the full text)
1. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 294
Morningstar’s Dave Sekera said in a recent program on Schwab Network that Microsoft is the last undervalued big tech name.
“A number of them are starting to get back into overvalued territory, you know, once again, we still see value there. I mean, names like Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) is still a four-star rated stock, so we still think that one’s undervalued. It’s pretty much like the last of the AI plays that’s undervalued,” he said.
Middle Coast Investing stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Big tech companies play in and are obviously affected by AI. We own Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and a small position of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT); of those, Microsoft has been seen as a winner due to its association with OpenAI. But really, the story seems to be that Microsoft’s Azure is gaining ground on Amazon Web services. AI is the source of demand driving the continued growth.”
While we acknowledge the potential of MSFT to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MSFT and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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