With November 2024 having settled in and the US presidential election in its final stages, investors are also digesting the results of the latest earnings season. As had been the case for the first and second-quarter earnings season, Q3 was also focused on artificial intelligence. While Wall Street’s AI GPU darling, the firm whose shares are up an unbelievable 206% over the past twelve months, is yet to report its earnings, other consequential firms have got the ball rolling.
Two of these are among the most important players in the software segment of the AI industry. The first is known for its tightly-knit relationship with the firm behind ChatGPT, OpenAI. The second is the world’s largest social media company that has made waves in the AI industry with its open-source Llama AI foundational AI model. Starting from the former, its ability to generate AI profits primarily through its cloud computing division is baked into the narrative.
Since its earnings report, the shares are down by 4.9%. This is even though the firm’s revenue and earnings per share of $65.59 billion and $3.30 beat analyst estimates of $64.51 billion and $3.10. Along with the earnings and revenue beat, the software company’s Azure cloud computing business which also includes its enterprise-focused AI services grew by 33% annually or 34% on a constant currency basis. These also beat analyst estimates, so on the surface, one would expect the shares to rise.
However, Wall Street isn’t always focused on current performance, and for AI stocks, their narratives are built on future expectations. These expectations are priced into the stocks. For the software company, its weak guidance is at the center of the poor share price performance as the current quarter revenue guidance of $68.1 billion to $69.1 billion missed Wall Street estimates of $69.83 billion by more than half a billion dollars.
The software company was joined by the social media firm to report its earnings on the same day. The Facebook parent’s shares are also down since the earnings report as they have lost 3.3% after recovering from the bottom of a 5.3% loss. Its earnings report, like the post-report stock performance, also mirrors the software company’s results to an extent. For starters, the social media firm also beat analyst revenue and EPS estimates. It posted $40.59 billion in revenue and $6.03 in earnings per share to beat analyst estimates of $40.29 billion and $5.25. Driving the beat was higher advertising revenue which grew by 18.7% annually to sit at $39.9 billion.
However, while the firm’s net income jumped by 35% to touch $15.7 billion, it was the slowest growth in over a year. Additionally, the firm reported that it had 3.29 billion active daily users during the third quarter, which was lower than the 3.31 billion in analyst estimates. Another factor that didn’t impress investors was its AI-driven capital expenditure. The firm raised the lower end of its full-year capital expenditure to $38 billion from $37 billion and kept the high end intact at $40 billion. Higher expenditures increase the return that investors expect and reduce payouts in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Consequently, the stock tumbled after the earnings report.
These two AI-driven earnings reports are part of a market that is now facing lower rates, higher growths, and the culmination of a bitterly fought presidential election. In a recent report, investment bank UBS took an optimistic view of the US stock market. It noted that from “a macro perspective, the combination of slowing but durable economic growth, healthy earnings growth, and continued Fed rate cuts is supportive.” The bank is also optimistic about AI and particularly about the broader category of firms apart from the GPU designer that has seen most of the share price gains so far.
In its report, it notes that “AI-related companies that span semiconductors, cloud service providers, devices, and data centers account for over one-third of the S&P 500 by market cap. We expect continued growth in AI investment spending to drive revenues and profits.” However, according to UBS, AI is not the only lucrative stock market sector offered by the US stock market. The bank adds that the “S&P 500 also offers exposure to secular growth in longevity through various US medical device companies. Many US companies are also playing leading roles in the energy transition via electric vehicles, renewables, and energy efficiency.”
On the topic of interest rate cuts, the report outlines that “50bps cuts at similar labor market conditions as today have historically been positive for equities.” These labor conditions are determined by the 3-month average for US nonfarm payrolls, and UBS also believes that rate cuts by the Federal Reserve can reverberate across global markets. It notes that “Historically, Fed rate cuts of more than 50bps when the market was within 1% of all-time highs have been rare. It only happened during the Volcker era in the mid 1980s. The S&P 500 rallied more than 20% in the 12 months following the jumbo cuts. Also, Fed rate cuts tend to reverberate positively across global equity markets, with Asia ex-Japan and emerging markets as the primary beneficiaries outside the US.”
Finally, with the 2024 US Presidential Election over, the bank’s report released ahead of the election also commented on the outcomes on Wall Street. It shared that “elections are a short-term risk; for instance, if former President Donald Trump is elected, markets may quickly price potential tariffs. However, we would see dips as buying opportunities and recommend gradually phasing in equity exposure.”
Our Methodology
To make our list of UBS stocks with improving quantitative indicators, we chose the firm’s top stocks that are seeing improvements in EPS growth, P/E ratio, and other indicators. Stocks within each sector were ranked by the number of hedge funds that had bought the shares during Q2 2024. The sectors themselves were ranked by the cumulative number of funds that had been invested in the firms in descending order.
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).
A graph plotting the trends and performance of stocks on the public equity markets.
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) is one of the biggest lithium providers in the world. This also makes it one of the worst-performing stocks on the market in 2024 as the shares are down by 34% year to date. The underperformance is driven by several factors. For starters, Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB)’s target industry, namely electric vehicles, hasn’t done well due to slowing demand. The stock didn’t fare well after the 2024 Presidential Election’s results either as investors factored in the incoming Trump Administration’s potential policies towards the clean energy industry. While Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB)’s sizable production base makes it a key player in the global lithium industry, the firm could see trouble in the future if the US and Western nations expand their sanctions against China’s EV industry and EV industry weakness reduces the number of battery manufacturers.
The London Company mentioned Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) in its Q2 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:
“Sold our remaining position in ALB after the stock triggered our soft stop loss review. We are concerned that weaker demand in the US for electric vehicles coupled with greater than expected supply of lithium reaching the market may lead to declining lithium prices. This will likely lead to lower cash flow generation in the years ahead, which weakens the downside protection case for the stock.”
Overall, ALB ranks 18th on our list of UBS’ bottom quant stocks in AI, IT, healthcare & other sectors. While we acknowledge the potential of ALB 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 ALB but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
