With the interest rate cycle kicking off in the US, stocks that are exposed to consumer and business spending are starting to see a favorable economic outlook. The stock market has also undergone a correction following the victory of President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the 2024 US Presidential Election. This correction has seen stocks that respond favorably to lower regulations, such as traditional energy, oil stocks, and banks, rise. At the same time, others, particularly green energy stocks, have not fared so well.
Consider the performance of the S&P's bank, energy, and green energy stock indexes as a brief example. Starting from the bank stock index, it has gained 8.8% since the election on November 5th (as of writing). During the same period, the flagship S&P index is up by a more modest 1.64%. Similarly, the S&P's energy stock index has also outpaced the benchmark index by gaining 4.29%. On the flip side, the green energy stock index is down by a staggering 8.9%.
Naturally, with the future for several sectors uncertain, this also calls for portfolio finetuning. On this front, investment bank Wells Fargo shared insights in its recent report following the election. Analyst Austin Pickle shared that his bank believes that "it is important not to let election outcomes and emotions drive investing decisions." This is because politicians often make big policy promises during campaigns which are then watered down at the time of implementation due to "prioritization and give-and-take with Congress and the legal system."
To prove that "equity returns are most heavily influenced by the economy’s long-term growth trend as well as fundamental supports that drive earnings growth," the analyst shares data about stock price performance during Democrat and Republican administrations. Two key takeaways from this are particularly noteworthy. On the qualitative front, Pickle outlines that "market turbulence has occurred during both Democrat and Republican administrations, but overall, stocks have tended to advance regardless of who is in the White House." The second takeaway is more striking and relevant since it involves money - which is, after all, the primary focus of any investor.
The WF analyst points out that if an investor in 1944 had invested $1,000 in the flagship S&P index, their investment would be worth more than $7 million today provided all dividends paid were reinvested. He goes further and cites the performance of small caps, real estate, energy, and clean energy stocks following the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections. Its data shows that from the day of the 2016 election to year-end, small-cap and energy stocks delivered roughly 10% and 2% in excess returns, respectively, to the flagship S&P. However, from the 2016 election to the 2020 election, these categories lagged the benchmark by ~30% and ~120% in relative returns.
Similarly, after President Biden's victory in the 2020 election to 2020 end, clean energy stocks delivered more than 20% in relative returns. Yet, by the 2024 election, they were down roughly 110%. Consequently, the bank "urges caution" for investors who are exclusively betting on campaign promises to materialize into policy action that generates tailwinds for stocks or other assets.
Shifting gears, while the tail-end of 2024 has seen the stock market driven by the election, other factors are also important to determine its performance. One factor that has been all the hype for more than a year is artificial intelligence. So far, AI-based stock returns have focused on a handful of companies. One of these is the GPU-designer whose shares are up by 736% since the start of December 2022 - or soon after OpenAI publicly unveiled ChatGPT. Between September 2023 and now, Wells Fargo uses the Gartner Hype Cycle to evaluate the sentiment surrounding AI in its report titled 'Generative AI — AI buildout continues as monetization challenges emerge.'
Between then and now, the bank believes that "generative AI has likely progressed from the “peak of inflated expectations” stage in the Gartner Hype Cycle into the “trough of disillusionment” stage." This means that businesses using or looking to use AI are now balancing costs with the productivity and other benefits offered by the technology. The firm also concurs with investment bank Goldman Sachs for the fact that investor attention to AI is now broadening out to firms that will provide the infrastructure needed to build out AI facilities. We covered these trends in detail as part of our coverage of Goldman Sachs’ Best Phase 2 AI Stocks: Top 24 High Conviction AI Stocks, and Wells notes that interest is now shifting to firms "building out the data-center infrastructure and supporting the need for reliable power and efficient cooling."
While generative AI might be in the "trough of disillusionment," the disillusionment doesn't mean that generative AI won't generate economic value. According to Wells Fargo's research, the "overall market for generative AI could grow at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 49%, from $11 billion in 2020 to $1.36 trillion in 2032" and generate revenue for supportive products such as chips and networking solutions.
Within the AI market, two key functionalities drive performance. These are AI training and AI inference. Both require GPUs and other data center infrastructure. The first is the 'back-office' of AI where companies prepare their models for the second feature which involves 'consumer-facing' operations of generating inferences in response to queries. In terms of revenue generation potential, training is naturally larger in 2024 and will continue to remain so for every year until 2032 since it includes building facilities to create AI software.
However, Wells cites OpenAI's o1 to share that inference revenue will grow faster. o1 was the first true upgrade to GPT from OpenAI. OpenAI's data shows that the new artificial intelligence model ranks in the 89th percentile for complex coding problems and improves performance on the LSAT and MATH Benchmark by more than 20 percentage points. The strong performance requires significantly more computing power for inferences, and it underscores the faster growth rate for this portion of the AI market.
According to WF's research, the training market can sit at $471 billion in 2032 while the inference market could touch $169 billion. While this potential is all well and good, it represents only a part of the AI debate and does not cover all of the risks. Most AI use cases right now are limited to the business world through enterprise and cloud computing. For the everyday consumer, AI use cases at the 'edge' are relevant. These include smartphones and laptops and are a major reason why the firm behind the iPhone has seen its shares rise by 16.5% since WWDC 2024 when it unveiled Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence is one of the first across-the-board edge AI use services, and as per WF, there is "more evidence of generative AI moving to the edge, meaning that generative AI models are being deployed directly onto local edge-computing devices (such as PCs and smartphones) that allow devices to process data locally instead of relying on the cloud." This evidence could also drive a new PC replacement cycle in 2025, believes the bank.
Yet, at the same time, the bank is also cautious. It notes that while AI has the potential to proliferate across a wide range of industries ranging from healthcare to retail, there is a need for caution as well since investors often heavily invest in emerging technologies before the technologies can fully deliver.
Our Methodology
To make our list of Wells Fargo's best growth stocks, we used the bank's recent Growth List, ranked the stocks by the consensus long-term EPS growth estimate, and picked those with 7% or higher growth. Wells selected the stocks by focusing on firms with a market cap greater than $1.5 billion, annual revenue of $500 million or more, and a forward EPS CAGR of 5% or more.
For these stocks, we also mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. 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 wearing a protective suit in a water treatment plant.
Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) is one of the biggest chemicals companies in America. The firm caters to the cleaning, sanitation, and infection prevention needs of industrial, healthcare, mining, food, manufacturing, and other companies. With a fortress balance sheet as evidenced by $3 billion in receivables and trailing twelve-month revenue of $15.6 billion, Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) enjoys a vast market presence. Yet, its reliance on industrial output makes robust economic output a precondition for financial prosperity. With US manufacturing activity being subdued for most of the past 12 months, a resurgence could bode well for Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL). The pent-up potential was evident after the firm's third quarter results which saw its global industrial segment grow revenue to $1.99 billion from the year-ago quarter's $1.94 billion. Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) has also set a mid-term operating margin goal of 20%, and this, along with broader economic recovery should drive its hypothesis moving forward.
Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)'s management shared details about its growth plans during the Q3 2024 earnings call. Here is what they said:
"Now I’d like to transition our attention from Q3 to what our teams are focused on to fuel long-term growth and margin expansion. Our growth engines in clean tech, high tech and biotech are showing strength and momentum, even if each are at the different stage of development.
Overall ECL ranks 16th on our list of Wells Fargo's best growth stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of ECL 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 ECL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
