CryptoCurrency
Prediction: This Will Be the Best Stock in the Dow Jones Next Year
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised of 30 stocks, but one stands out from the pack.
The “Magnificent Seven” is a moniker used to collectively describe a market-moving cluster of some of the world’s largest technology enterprises: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Tesla. Each is putting its own stamp on the artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, and all have received a lot of attention from media outlets and investors alike.
But another AI stock that gets less press has handily outperformed five of the Magnificent Seven over the past two years. Enterprise software leader and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) component Salesforce (CRM 0.87%) has gained a whopping 98% in just two years.
Even with that impressive run-up behind it, I think Salesforce’s next growth phase is just beginning. In fact, given the lucrative opportunity the company has in AI, I think Salesforce could be the top-performing stock in the Dow next year.
What about the rest of the Dow Jones?
Asserting that Salesforce could be the top performer in the Dow next year is a bold claim. After all, what about the other 29 companies?
The Dow is a curated index that includes some of the world’s largest companies across most major industry sectors. In my opinion, both financial services and consumer goods stocks still carry some risk. Specifically, I see both of these industries as particularly vulnerable to macroeconomic forces including inflation and interest rates. While inflation has been cooling for quite some time and the Federal Reserve has instituted an interest rate tapering protocol, I do not think the broader economy is quite out of the woods just yet.
Moreover, I think energy stocks are going to experience excessive volatility for the time being. Broadly speaking, energy policies tend to differ between which parties are in control of Congress. Even after the results of the 2024 election shake out next month, I could easily see energy stocks moving pretty dramatically depending on any policy changes that could go into effect.
This leaves the technology sector, where the DJIA includes major tech players including Amazon, Apple, Cisco, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. While I’m bullish on Amazon and Microsoft, I think both companies are facing a lot of pressure and scrutiny to drive consistent impressive results, considering that they have both poured billions into their AI initiatives.
Meanwhile, Apple’s AI roadmap is in its early stages — making it hard to predict how its decisions will pan out. Unfortunately, I think Intel’s best days may be behind it. And IBM and Cisco are stuck competing in saturated markets. For all of these reasons, I think Salesforce has the most upside compared to its peers.
A huge opportunity for Salesforce
If you’ve been paying attention to artificial intelligence narratives over the last couple of years, you’ve heard the term “generative AI” ad nauseam. But what does it actually mean?
In simple terms, generative AI is software that has the capability to digest datasets to help answer complicated questions extremely quickly. When generative AI tools are at their best, employees across a company’s workforce are running sophisticated queries and creating robust data-driven dashboards — leading to enhanced productivity and efficiency. No more spinning your wheels and burning the midnight oil.
One of the leading types of applications in generative AI right now is the virtual agent. Microsoft has been a big winner in this regard thanks to its CoPilot assistant, which runs on ChatGPT and has been integrated throughout the company’s ecosystem, spanning cloud computing, productivity tools, and software development.
Salesforce has taken note of Microsoft’s success and decided to challenge its big tech cohort. Enter Agentforce, a virtual assistant that can help customers with things such as scheduling appointments, billing resolutions, cybersecurity threat analysis, and a host of other use cases. Salesforce’s vision is to remove the friction of human-led customer service and allow AI-powered agents to resolve customers’ needs.
Salesforce already has a deep penetration among large-scale corporations and small and midsize enterprises thanks to its customer relationship management (CRM) platform, data analytics tools powered by Tableau, and messenger tool Slack. To me, Agentforce should be an easy cross-selling opportunity to Salesforce’s existing customer base, and the company has a unique chance to emerge as a strong pillar supporting digital solutions.
Is Salesforce stock a buy right now?
Right now, Salesforce shares trade at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 28.5. This is a healthy premium compared to the S&P 500‘s forward P/E of 22.9.
Although Salesforce may be valued as a superior investment compared to the broader market, the company is trading at a discount to the majority of its technology industry counterparts in the DJIA.
I think Agentforce is going to be a major tailwind for Salesforce so long as the AI narrative holds up. Investors may want to be on the lookout over the next year to see how the adoption of Agentforce is progressing and what kind of growth it’s driving for Salesforce.
If Microsoft CoPilot serves as any proxy, I think much better days are ahead for Salesforce, and I expect to see the stock soaring over the next year.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Cisco Systems, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Salesforce, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Intel and International Business Machines and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short November 2024 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
CryptoCurrency
Time to Hit Buy on These 2 Software Stocks, Says Daniel Ives
It’s no secret that tech stocks have been powering the market gains over the past few years, and software stocks were among the biggest drivers of this growth.
Multiple factors are propelling the software industry forward, such as the rapid advancement of AI technology, high demand for IT solutions, and the ongoing expansion of the global digital economy.
Wedbush tech expert Daniel Ives has been watching the tech industry, and his take on it points to continued strength supported by AI and cloud expansion.
“Solid enterprise spending, digital advertising rebound, and the AI Revolution will drive tech stocks higher into year-end in our view,” Ives opined. “We believe 70% of global workloads will be on the cloud by the end of 2025, up from less than 50% today.”
Keeping that in mind, Ives goes on to add that the time has come to hit buy on two software stocks. They may not be household names, but according to the TipRanks data, both stocks are Buy-rated – and Ives sees significantly more upside to each than the consensus on the Street. Let’s take a closer look.
Couchbase (BASE)
We’ll start with Couchbase, a modern database platform provider that offers users and developers everything they need to support a wide range of applications – from cloud, to edge, to AI. Couchbase bills itself as a one-stop-shop for data developers and architects, making its services available through its powerful database-as-a-service platform, Capella. Organizations using the service can quickly create applications and services that deliver premium customer experiences, giving top-end performance at affordable prices.
The Capella platform brings the popular as-a-service subscription model to the database industry. The company can support database services for a wide range of AI applications, including the latest gen-AI tech, as well as database search, mobile access, and analytic functions. Customers can also choose self-managed services through Couchbase’s servers, with on-premises management for both multicloud and community apps.
Couchbase’s database service has found success in a wide range of fields, including the gaming, healthcare, entertainment, retail, travel, and utility sectors. The company’s customer base includes such major names as Verizon, UPS, Walmart, Cisco, Comcast, GE, and PayPal.
Turning to the financial results, we see that Couchbase reported its fiscal 2Q25 figures at the start of last month. The top line of $51.6 million was up almost 20% year-over-year and came in just over the forecast, beating expectations by nearly a half-million dollars. At the bottom line, the company ran a net loss of 6 cents per share in non-GAAP measures, but that was 3 cents per share better than had been anticipated.
CryptoCurrency
Ripple files Form C, appeals SEC ruling on XRP institutional sales
Ripple challenges SEC’s ruling on institutional XRP sales, claiming the Howey test was misapplied.
CryptoCurrency
Bitcoin analyst: $100K BTC price by February 'completely within reason'
BTC price trajectory appears all but destined for six figures in the mid term — despite nearly eight months of Bitcoin market consolidation.
CryptoCurrency
1 Top Stock to Buy Hand Over Fist Before That Happens
2024 is turning out to be a solid year for the global semiconductor industry, driven by multiple catalysts. These include the booming demand for chips that can manage artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, a turnaround in the smartphone market’s fortunes, and a recovery in the personal computer (PC) market.
These factors explain why the global semiconductor industry’s revenue is expected to jump 16% in 2024 to $611.2 billion, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). That points toward a nice turnaround from last year, when the semiconductor industry’s revenue fell 8%. Even better, the semiconductor space is expected to keep growing in 2025 as well, with WSTS projecting a 12.5% increase in the industry’s earnings to $687.4 billion next year.
More specifically, WSTS predicts a whopping 25% increase in the memory market’s revenue in 2025 to $204.3 billion. As it turns out, memory is expected to be the fastest-growing semiconductor segment next year as well, following an estimated jump of almost 77% in this segment’s revenue in 2024.
There’s one company that could help investors tap this fast-growing niche of the semiconductor market next year: Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU). Let’s look at the reasons why buying this semiconductor stock could turn out to be a smart move right now.
WSTS isn’t the only forecaster expecting the memory market to surge higher next year. Market research firm TrendForce estimates that the sales of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) could jump 51% in 2025, while the NAND flash storage market could clock 29% growth. Both these markets are expected to reach record highs next year.
The growth in these memory markets will be driven by a combination of strong demand and improved pricing. TrendForce is forecasting a 35% year-over-year increase in DRAM prices next year, driven by the increasing demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that’s used in AI processors, as well as the growth in DRAM deployed in servers. Meanwhile, the growing demand for enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs) and the growth in smartphone storage will be tailwinds for the NAND flash market.
These positive trends explain why Micron is set to begin its new fiscal year on a bright note. The company’s revenue in fiscal 2024 (which ended on Aug. 29) increased 61% year over year to $25.1 billion. The company posted a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profit of $1.30 per share, compared to a loss of $4.45 per share in fiscal 2023, driven by a big jump in its operating margin on account of recovering memory prices.
CryptoCurrency
A truly decentralized system would decentralize authority — Cardano exec
Cardano Foundation chief technology officer Giorgio Zinetti told Cointelegraph that centralized authority is good for speed, but decentralized governance would give long-term sustainability.
CryptoCurrency
Intel’s former CEO tried to buy Nvidia almost 2 decades ago
Tech pioneer Intel (INTC) has seemingly missed out on the artificial intelligence boom — and part of it can reportedly be traced back to a decision not to buy the chipmaker at the center of it all almost two decades ago.
Intel’s former chief executive Paul Otellini wanted to buy Nvidia in 2005 when the chipmaker was mostly known for making computer graphics chips, which some executives thought had potential for data centers, The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. However, Intel’s board did not approve of the $20 billion acquisition — which would’ve been the company’s most expensive yet — and Otellini dropped the effort, according to The New York Times.
Instead, the board was reportedly more interested in an in-house graphics project called Larrabee, which was led by now-chief executive Pat Gelsinger.
Almost two decades later, Nvidia (NVDA) has become the second-most valuable public company in the world and continuously exceeds Wall Street’s high expectations. Intel, on the other hand, has seen its shares fall around 53% so far this year and is now worth less than $100 billion — around 30 times less than Nvidia’s $3.4 trillion market cap.
In August, Intel shares fell 27% after it missed revenue expectations with its second-quarter earnings and announced layoffs. The company missed profit expectations partly due to its decision to “more quickly ramp” its Core Ultra artificial intelligence CPUs, or core processing units, that can handle AI applications, Gelsinger said on the company’s earnings call.
And Nvidia wasn’t the only AI darling Intel missed out on.
Over a decade after passing on Nvidia, Intel made another strategic miss by reportedly deciding not to buy a stake in OpenAI, which had not yet kicked off the current AI hype with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.
Former Intel chief executive Bob Swan didn’t think OpenAI’s generative AI models would come to market soon enough for the investment to be worth it, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The AI startup had been interested in Intel, sources told Reuters (TRI), so it could depend less on Nvidia and build its own infrastructure.
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