Key Points
- Generative AI and technology stocks gained investor confidence in November, with Cognizant, Snowflake and Salesforce having unheralded AI potential.
- AI titan Nvidia maintains its position as the biggest year-to-date gainer in the S&P 500.
- Consulting firm Accenture predicts outsized investment in generative AI and large language models.
- 5 stocks we like better than Adobe
It’s been a wild ride for generative AI platform ChatGPT and its financial backer Microsoft Corp. NASDAQ: MSFT. While those two companies, along with chip designer Nvidia Corp. NASDAQ: NVDA are among the companies most closely associated with the AI trend, plenty of other stocks are poised to rise as AI delivers on its potential.
In a March report on generative AI, consulting firm Accenture said, “Moments like this don’t come around often. The coming years will see outsized investment in generative AI, large language models and foundation models.”
Foundation models can perform a variety of tasks, including the generation of code, text and images.
“What’s unique about this evolution is that the technology, regulation, and business adoption are all accelerating exponentially at the same time,” said Accenture.
It added that “in previous innovation curves, the technology typically outpaced both adoption and regulation.”
While regulation is still a question mark, investors regained their confidence in artificial intelligence stocks and technology stocks overall in November.
Nvidia continues its S&P dominance
Nvidia remains the biggest year-to-date price gainer in the S&P 500 with a gain of 226.92%, underscoring the market’s continued optimism about AI.
Other S&P 2023 leaders rising at least in part because of AI include Palo Alto Networks Inc. NASDAQ: PANW, Meta Platforms Inc. NASDAQ: META, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. NASDAQ: AMD, Adobe Inc. NASDAQ: ADBE and Arista Networks Inc. NASDAQ: ANET.
But how about stocks that have AI potential, but haven’t rallied to the degree of others this year?
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. NASDAQ: CTSH, Snowflake Inc. NASDAQ: SNOW and Salesforce Inc. NYSE: CRM are trading at discounts relative to their intrinsic values, based on profitability forecasts.
Implementing AI for enterprise customers
Cognizant provides IT services and consulting for diverse industries. IT services firms are likely to benefit from AI as enterprise customers seek help with the implementation of AI technologies.
Cognizant offers its own solution, Neuro AI, designed to help large companies accelerate the adoption and deployment of generative AI platforms.
The Cognizant chart illustrates how the stock has been punished since early 2022 as revenue slowed due to a lag in developing cloud solutions.
Cognizant shares rallied in the past two weeks, and have posted a November gain of 10.39%. MarketBeat’s Cognizant analyst forecasts show a consensus view of “hold,” although investors’ view of the stock seems to be “buy.”
Analyzing large volumes of data
The Snowflake chart shows a long consolidation that began in September 2022, well below its post-IPO high in 2020 and 2021.
Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing platform that helps enterprise customers store and analyze large volumes of data. That allows companies to make faster data-driven decisions.
In a nutshell, Snowflake functions as a management platform for cloud-based data. In May, it acquired AI search specialist Neeva. In June, it rolled out more features giving users more access to generative AI models.
Snowflake also has its own large language model-based interface, Document AI.
Wall Street expects the company to pivot to profitability this year, earning 68 cents a share. Next year, that’s expected to grow by 49% to $1.01 per share.
Double-digit year-to-date gain
Salesforce is a familiar name and product for many businesses that use its customer relationship database and other products, such as messaging app Slack.
The Salesforce chart shows a stock that’s performing well, advancing 9.18% in the past three months and 69.23% year-to-date.
Nonetheless, as Salesforce analyst forecasts show, Wall Street sees room for more upside.
The company is expected to earn $8.04 per share this year, an increase of 53%. Earnings are expected to grow just 6% next year, to $8.53 a share. Revenue growth has been decelerating, but that’s not entirely unexpected in a company like Salesforce that’s been public since 2004.
Rolling out new AI features
As a database specialist, Salesforce’s focus on AI is a natural, although that’s not as exciting as text or image generation, so it’s not grabbing as much media attention.
However, Salesforce began rolling out AI features way back in 2016. Salesforce’s Einstein AI platform offers predictive analytics and customized data-analysis insights.
In mid-November, Salesforce said it was adding more generative AI features to its Sales Cloud platform.
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