Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the name of the game throughout 2023 and the boom persisted into the first quarter of 2024 with certain involved companies – Super Micro Computer (SMCI) – making stunning, 100%+ gains in mere months.
With many of the obvious candidates for benefiting from the trend already recording incredible growth, and some even slowing down in the most recent time frames, the question of which are the best AI companies in the coming quarters to invest in.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of firms involved with the technology covering its every imaginable faucet – cloud computing, manufacturing hardware, manufacturing hardware for the firms manufacturing hardware, and many other fields.
Picks for you
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA)
Despite seeing massive growth thanks to the boom ever since late 2022, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is well-positioned to continue benefiting from the expansion of the AI sector.
While the blue-chip chipmaker is unlikely to maintain its 90% market share as the competition is getting stiffer, Nvidia remains in a top position to remain the main semiconductor supplier of the boom.
Such confidence is well-reflected in the stock market where NVDA shares climbed 87.60% since January 1 with the uptrend remaining mostly strong throughout the first quarter of 2024.
Still, the most recent trading demonstrates a slowdown with Nvidia shares being 3.82% in the red on the weekly chart and climbing 0.01% to $903.63.
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL)
Though Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and, particularly, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) take the bulk of the attention in any discussion of AI-powering cloud infrastructure, Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) might be one of the more interesting players in 2024.
In March, the company unveiled a partnership with Nvidia which led to an immediate stock market impact – and a 13% 1-day surge – and set Oracle as one of the big contenders to become a major beneficiary of 2024.
Oracle is also interesting as its stock, while in the green, is yet to make massive moves seen with NVDA, SMCI, or Micron (NASDAQ: MU) and is up a relatively modest 20.58% year-to-date (YTD).
Additionally, much like Nvidia, and despite being highly promising in the longer term, the most recent performance showcases a slump in investor confidence in the boom. ORCL shares fell 1.66% in the last 30 days and closed 0.10% in the red on Monday at $125.48.
Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW)
As the AI sector has begun to mature, various behind-the-scenes players that play pivotal roles in the industry have started coming up on the investors’ radars.
Earlier in 2024, ASML (NASDAQ: ASML) became a topic of discussion as, without its hardware, the work of many other, more famous firms like Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Samsung (LSIN: SMSN) would not be possible.
Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) is another such company.
The old programming adage of “garbage in, garbage out” sums up one of the big issues facing modern AI models – particularly if there is any truth to the “dead internet theory.”
Snowflake is the firm that serves to help companies, among its other roles, organize and ensure the quality of their training data.
SNOW is focused on providing seamless integration, security, and scalability and generally making the indispensable and unavoidable work of data management relatively easy for the more prominent participants in the AI industry.
That being said, while both interesting and important, Snowflake definitely constitutes a longer-term play as its performance in the stock market has been substantially weaker than that of the other AI-related companies – particularly after its stock collapsed on February 28 following the departure of its CEO and issuing weak guidance in an otherwise strong earnings report.
Indeed, SNOW is 15.12% in the red year-to-date (YTD), though its more recent performance indicates it has, for the time being, stabilized. The last full week of trading saw Snowflake shares climb 1.85% and the latest market session saw them drop 0.67% to $160.52.
Buy stocks now with eToro – trusted and advanced investment platform
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
