We recently compiled a list of the 15 Best Hardware Stocks According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) stands against the other hardware stocks.
With the first half of 2024 nearly over, artificial intelligence continues to play a dominant role in the stock market. Stocks that either design semiconductors that are used for AI applications, or those that use them to either streamline their internal operations such as coding or offer products to customers have also made significant gains. These show the optimism in Wall Street for accelerated computing technologies, which are collectively called artificial intelligence.
In fact, the impact of AI has been so strong that not only has it upended the status quo of the most valuable firms in terms of market capitalization, but it also allowed some of the top AI companies to post triple digit percentage share price returns over the course of the past twelve months. Some of the top performing AI stocks are up by 213% over the past twelve months and have appreciated by 773% since November 2022. Back then, the stock market was whimpering in the aftermath of rapid interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, which had hit technology stocks particularly hard since they benefit from a fast growth and low rate environment.
However, AI’s impact on the stock market has fueled the triple digit percentage gains in some stocks since then. At the same time, it has also meant that major indexes continue to demonstrate robust performance that is fueled by the share price performance of mega cap technology stocks.
In 2024, the market has moved forward from investing in AI companies that can change the world with their hardware or software to evaluating whether these firms are delivering. The first quarter of the 2024 earnings season was the clearest example of this phenomenon, and it saw Wall Street take an unforgiving approach to large and small firms that presented even the slightest hint of being unable to either grow their revenues by targeting AI or control the costs of investing in the new technologies.
Within the AI industry, there are different categories of firms. Most of these, such as OpenAI, operate on the software side. This industry subsegment develops applications such as chat bots and other assistants along with expanding the use of AI to existing software such as image editing tools. AI hardware companies power these applications, and when compared to the software firms, not only do they command stable valuations, but they also see investors take comfort in the fact that the demand for their products is far more stable and predictable when compared to software demand. Recently Goldman Sachs published a bullish report on hardware stocks due to AI, which we covered in 15 Best Hardware Stocks According To Goldman. In this article we are going to approach the same theme from a different angle and there are vast differences between both rankings of hardware stocks.
Our Methodology
To make our list of the top hedge fund hardware stock picks, we ranked personal computing, semiconductor, and computer hardware by the number of hedge funds that had bought the shares in Q1 2024. Out of these, the stocks with the highest number of hedge fund investors were selected. Basically our article listed the best hardware stocks to buy according to the 900+ equity hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey. Why do we care about what hedge funds do? 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A technician working at a magnified microscope, developing a new integrated circuit.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders In Q1 2024: 115
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) provides networking chips used in AI and other products. Bernstein’s well known semi analyst Stacy Rasgon explained in June 2024 why Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) is a top AI hardware stock. According to him, Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) has the “second best AI story in the space” after NVIDIA, since it plays in the lucrative AI networking market. Rasgon believes that the networking market is just as important as the compute market led by NVIDIA. The average of 28 one year analyst share price targets for Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) is $1,533 and the shares are rated Buy on average.
For their first quarter of 2024 shareholdings, 115 hedge funds polled by Insider Monkey had held a stake in Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO). Rajiv Jain’s GQG Partners owned the most valuable stake that was worth $3.9 billion.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) has a forward price to earnings ratio of 29.94, which implies that AI has led to investors expecting it to outpace broader markets for growth. Baron Funds commented on the stock in its Q1 2024 investor letter and shared:
We also initiated a new position in Broadcom Inc., a global technology leader that designs, develops, and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Its semiconductor solutions focus on complex digital, mixed signal, and analog products across a variety of end-markets while its software products help customers plan, develop, automate, manage, and secure applications across various platforms.
Historically, Broadcom’s semiconductor business has been a market-leading franchise with high margins and market-level growth, but the emergence of AI-related demand has spurred stronger growth across its portfolio, specifically in its Networking business unit. Broadcom’s AI-related revenue has grown from less than 5% of its semiconductor business to an expected 35% in its fiscal 2024 as its industry-leading Ethernet switch silicon business and, more importantly its custom silicon solutions, primarily the TPU for Google but with two additional customers ramping as well, have grown significantly. While custom chips tend to be less versatile and flexible than GPUs, their adoption makes sense if customers have large scale workloads with algorithms that are relatively stable, as they allow hyperscale customers to save costs on both upfront capex as well as on energy consumption. Over time, we believe that custom silicon solutions will obtain a noticeable market share of internal AI workloads, with Broadcom as the main beneficiary given its 10-year history of working with its customers, leading to a higher proportion of sales related to AI and an above-market growth in the company’s semiconductor solutions business.
Overall AVGO ranks 5th on our list of the best hardware stocks to buy. You can visit 15 Best Hardware Stocks According to Hedge Funds to see the other hardware stocks that are on hedge funds’ radar. While we acknowledge the potential of AVGO as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AVGO but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.