We recently published a list of 11 Most Promising Future Stocks According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) stands against other most promising future stocks to buy now.
The past year has seen investors pour money into futuristic trends such as electric vehicles and AI. These trends have raised the question of whether regulators will slow their growth in 2025 or attain more space to run with a green signal from the government. Venture Capitalist Bradley Tusk appeared on CNBC to talk about the industries that are expected to thrive in 2025 and how policy changes could affect investments across these hot industries.
He said that while some of the policies on big tech might continue, we would likely see a friendlier climate towards M&A activity and new technology in fintech, healthcare tech, and energy. The various factors are thus coming together well, especially in the world of venture capital. While it has not been all that vibrant there in the past few years, things are starting to turn around now.
What Could the Future Look Like for AI?
However, Tusk said that he does not feel confident that the current administration would provide the necessary safety and security while also letting technology get competitive. He provides Internet 2.0 as evidence, saying that we still have to regulate social media while we are a decade and a half into this experiment now. While we have a good idea of how to regulate AI, the federal and state-level authorities have not been particularly competent at broadly regulating new technologies. If you leave it to the state, you will likely get 50 different intellectual and analytical frameworks on regulating AI, which becomes almost impossible for the companies to comply with. Tusk thus opines that we could really use some competent leadership at the federal level, as these factors might be a potential hindrance to the upside of this technology.
Talking further about the future of the AI industry, he said that people will likely continue to build an arms race in the area, and the momentum and excitement will continue irrespective of the circumstances. Companies in this area are so heavily invested that they have to keep investing no matter what. At the same time, AI is still a world of unfulfilled potential. There is a lot of talk about what it could be and how it could change the way we create new drugs, teach children, discover minerals, or anything else. But at some point, it has to go from a cool search engine and exciting potential idea to actual revenue and savings. Tusk said that this is the year it has to start being shown, as you can’t just forever continue investing for the potential that may come someday; at one point, the economics have to come in too.
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Outlook for the Crypto and Fintech Sectors
Talking about the crypto world and its potential future, Tusk said he expects regulations to be positive for the asset class. According to him, it couldn’t have been much worse over the last four years with Gary Gensler, the former chair of SEC, who was considerably anti-crypto. He expects the institution leaders of the current administration to be a lot more friendlier to crypto. That does not necessarily mean that the world would be happy with every signal crypto legislation that comes out, just that it is likely to be more reasonable.
Moving to the fintech industry, Tusk agreed that the last four years have been one with the reputation of being more heavy-handed in terms of legislation in the sector. There is a broad expectation that the fintech and banking industry would undergo a massive sweep of deregulation, at least administratively. If we are trying to read the tea leaves, it would likely happen if the deregulation could be done without legislation. But he didn’t express confidence about it happening if it requires legislation.
Our Methodology
We sifted through stock screeners, financial media reports, and ETFs to compile a list of the most promising future stocks and then chose the top 11 with the highest number of hedge fund holders as of Q4 2024. We sourced the hedge fund sentiment data from Insider Monkey’s database. The list is ordered in ascending order of 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 363.5% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 208 percentage points (see more details here).
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 262
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) builds technological products that allow people to share, connect, grow businesses, and find communities. These products help people connect through personal computers, mobile devices, virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) headsets, and wearables. The company is making significant progress toward AI and AR/VR technologies. Reality Labs, Meta Inc.’s (NASDAQ:META) division dedicated to AR and VR innovations, is known for its substantial financial investments in these emerging consumer platforms, and Orion, the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made, is a testament to that. The company has also launched the first version of the Meta AI app, with significant advancements expected in the technology in the near future.
On April 1, Monness analyst Brian White maintained their bullish stance on Meta Inc. (NASDAQ:META), giving a Buy rating after the company reported notable fiscal Q1 2025 results. Revenue and EPS both surpassed the analyst’s and the market’s expectations, supported by a solid operating margin and robust advertising revenue growth. This reflects the company’s ability to navigate challenging economic conditions.
Meta Inc.’s (NASDAQ:META) strong and strategic focus on digital advertising trends and AI positions it well for future growth, ranking it second on our list of the most promising future stocks to invest in now. The analyst opined that Meta AI’s user base expansion to nearly one billion monthly active users and the introduction of new AI models highlight Meta Inc.’s (NASDAQ:META) innovative capabilities, justifying the buy rating and its position on our list.
Overall, META ranks 2nd on our list of most promising future stocks according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential for META as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some 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 META but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
