Gene Munster: Salesforce (CRM) Guidance was ‘Punky’ But Benioff Comments Shows AI Trade ‘Alive and Well’ - InvestingChannel

Gene Munster: Salesforce (CRM) Guidance was ‘Punky’ But Benioff Comments Shows AI Trade ‘Alive and Well’

We recently published a list of 10 AI Stocks Wall Street is Talking About. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) stands against other AI stocks Wall Street is talking about.

Defiance ETFs CEO and CIO Sylvia Jablonski said in a recent program on Bloomberg that there are trillions of dollars of cash waiting on the sidelines ready to be invested in AI amid demand that is at an all-time high.

“There’s a biggest wealth transfer of our generation happening as we speak. And you know, Gen Z, you know, Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X kind of, you know, the younger traders are, this is where they’re allocating their funds to. And, you know, retail has definitely spoken, and institutions have definitely spoken, and they’re looking for that, that fourth industrial revolution allocation.”

Sylvia also talked about the relationship between quantum computing and AI and explained how this technology would improve AI systems:

“So chatbot AI is, you know, kind of version one. Quantum is taking everything to the next level. So you need quantum in order for it to be efficient. You need to process that data quickly. It will help, you know, essentially health care, cryptography, aerospace and defense, you know, blockchain technology. Anything you can think of will be better, too, with quantum supercomputing power.”

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In

For this article, we chose 10 AI stocks that are currently buzzing on the back of latest news and analyst ratings. With each stock we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Gene Munster: Salesforce (CRM) Guidance was ‘Punky’ But Benioff Comments Shows AI Trade ‘Alive and Well’ Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 116

Gene Munster, Deepwater Asset Management managing partner, said while talking to CNBC in a latest program that Salesforce’s latest guidance wasn’t as good as it seemed but the stock shot up mostly because of the company’s CEO comments during the earnings call that gave an insight to investors about the potential of Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM).

“I think the substance of why this stock is moving like it is basically comes down to Marc Benioff. He put on a lecture—call it 20-plus minutes—on the potential around AI. You could go to that transcript, throw a dart at it, and land on some incredible comment about how AI is going to reshape the world and ultimately reshape Salesforce.

The punchline is that they believe in this digital workforce, these agents, and they’re the only Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) that can really bring it all together—across data, across different segments of a business. That’s the point. I think the light has gone on for some software investors today.

Even with that punky guidance, the move in the stock is evidence that the AI trade is alive and well.”

Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

“In the third quarter, we purchased new positions in Apple and Oracle and eliminated our small positions in Nike and Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM). We exited our position in Salesforce to fund better opportunities in Shopify and MSCI. Salesforce is seeing slower revenue growth than we would have expected, given the weakening macroeconomic environment. Furthermore, since its core end markets in customer relationship management (“CRM”) and Service are fairly mature, a lower growth level versus our expectations could persist for some time.”

Overall, CRM ranks 5th on our list of AI stocks Wall Street is talking about. While we acknowledge the potential of CRM, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

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