5 Stocks to Buy After Earnings

It's been a huge week of earnings reports and these are the five companies you should be looking to add to your portfolio after this earnings week. Joining us today is Marketbeat analyst Thomas Hughes with his top five picks. Thomas, there has been so much price action this earnings season. I feel like compared to other quarters we've seen in the past, the moves this quarter have been a lot, especially this week. >> Uh yeah, there have been quite a few big moves. And you know, these are the the five stocks that I'm looking at right now, but these are just the five stocks that I I cover a lot. There were a lot of really good newses that came out this week. Lots of stocks that are moving higher. I see lots of opportunity in the market right now. >> Yeah. Before we get to the five names, just a quick little teaching on earnings season and how you normally play this. You see the reports, the reports are now there. You've seen what expectations are coming and what the growth could look like. What do you normally do as far as adding to your portfolio after earning season? Do you add right away? Do you wait a little bit to see how much more the market might react after that earnings report? What's kind of your timing for after earning season comes for some of these names? >> It just kind of depends on the report and and the market reaction. Sometimes we get good news and the markets move higher. Sometimes we get good news and the markets pull back. Generally speaking, I just look to the news to uh either confirm or contradict the outlook. So long as the news is confirming the outlook and I see it strengthening, then you know the uptrend will continue. Pullbacks are buying opportunities. Um, if the outlook is uh is diminished, then it's possible we hit a top and in that case, you're going to want to be more careful when the stock prices pull back. >> You're going to see a little bit of all of those stories, but you have some of the names on this list pulling back right now. You have some of them exploding higher, but you are going to share what you look at in these earnings reports that give you confidence that these are names that you want to have in your portfolio moving forward after this earnings report. So, let's dive in. What is the first company on your list of five stocks today? >> Right. Uh, that's Big Bear AI. Big Bear AI is a stock that we really or I wasn't very bullish on all throughout last year. It was repositioning. It was taking on uh or raising money. It was diluting shares, but repositioning and and facing its balance sheet. So, in the uh the last earnings report, we saw a lot of traction. Uh we saw the results of those improvements. We saw some follow on orders. We saw just uh some improvements in the business outlook. And that caused me to shift Big Bear into kind of a like a a high-risk speculation play. started with a really small position. Since then, the stock did move down a little bit from that first entry point, but has rebounded nicely. Now, this new report really confirms that this turnaround is taking traction. Uh, we've got some more orders. We've got more clarity in the outlook. The company has finalized its turnaround process. The balance sheets in much better condition. So, right now, we're looking for the company to start building on its success. Um, in that scenario, we're going to see the stock price moving higher over time. Um there's going to be some periodic corrections. Uh but as it stands right now, uh the market is absolutely in an upswing. We see that in the institutional inflows that's kind of been picking up. Um analysts are still positive. Uh so again, you know, as this thing progresses, future quarters, we get more good reports. We're going to see all those trends strengthening which really help underpin the stock price action and will help lift it over time. >> Yeah, I like that we started with the name that again you were not bullish on for the last year. What in this earnings report in particular was enough of a turnaround from what you've saw in the earnings reports the last few quarters that have you changing your mind on the momentum here is really strong and the case for Big Bear long-term is actually a good one. >> Well, to begin with, uh they've really exited that that phase where they're in a highly dilutive actions where they're selling lots of shares to raise money. They've really fixed their balance sheet. Uh so they don't have these legacy problems anymore. So it's it's it's more of a um like the end of a bad story and the opening of a good story. so much more so than uh really a lot of momentum. They are showing some momentum. They've got some orders. They've got some business brewing. Uh the backlog is up 15%. So, we are looking for some improving with the business. Uh but right now, we really want to see some some more confirmation to become even more bullish on it, you know. So, right now, I do consider Big Bear to be a really a highly speculative play. >> Yeah. Let's talk about those investors who got into Big Bear when it was on that huge rally back in October, November of last year. How long do you think it could take for this stock in particular to get back to those highs, especially for, you know, investors who might have bought when it was at towards that all-time high? >> Well, right. So, right now we're kind of approaching an inflection point. So, the market has hit its bottom and it is reversing, but we're moving up to what I consider to be a a critical resistance and an inflection point. That's with the long-term 150WE EMA that represents institutional long-term buy and hold investors. Um, if the market can't get above that level, it's going to stay rangebound and will possibly retest its lows near $3. But if the market can move above this level and sustain it as support, I will consider that to be a market inflection that sets us up for more upside. In that scenario, the market can move from, you know, the $4, $5 level up to six pretty quickly and then even higher over time. It will take some time because it's, you know, three months for each earnings report to come out. And that's that's about the pace that it will take for this company to to show traction because it'll it'll it'll need to show some pretty major improvements. >> All right. Well, from one company that you weren't really bullish on for the last year to a name that you have been very bullish on for more than a year, and this one is pulling back after this earnings report, >> right? Um, and Prius Technologies, it's down. It fell more than 25% following its report. That really is quite a big movement. It's an alarming movement. It's one that's going to keep a lot of investors out of the market for the foreseeable future. However, to me, it's a knee-jerk reaction uh to a headline because all other metrics were very bullish in this report and there are some factors in play that have kind of capped the market and set it up for that accelerated amplified downside. For one thing, there was a really robust market advance in the 12 months preceding the report. The market was already trading at the high end of the analyst expected target range, kind of capping gains. At the same time, we'd seen short sellers selling into the market. Short interest was pretty high. So, when we got that headline that said that the gap earnings were less than expected, the market just sold off. Short sellers probably sold right into that sell-off, amplifying the downside. And now the market has been, you know, pressed down to that, you know, minus 25% point. However, support is still evident above critical levels at previous highs that were set last year. Uh, to me, this is just a natural market mechanic because again, revenue grew. It outpaced consensus by several hundred basis points. Profitability absolutely did improve. The gap uh results were less than expected, but losses narrowed significantly. And we're on an inflection. We're near the inflection to profits. The company's predicting positive EBID by end of year. So, all very bullish news for this stock. >> Yeah, this is a name that has been a really hot name for investors in the last year. It's still up over 600% even after pulling back uh after this earnings report. So, it's been a big winner for investors, but I think like you said, there's going to be some fears when you see a report like this. But we've seen the last few quarters over the last year, you've stayed bullish on AMPX, even though we had an earnings report a few quarters ago that wasn't so great. The stock did the same thing, had a pullback, you were still bullish on it. Then we had a quarter where it did really well and everybody was buying in after earnings and you were bullish on it then, too. And so what do you see in this report that consistently makes you stay behind this company and really believing in the strong future growth and future outlook a few years down the road for this one? >> One, the technology works. It provides utility. There's lots of applications specifically in government and defense. And uh what we're seeing in the business is they're ramping their production capacity and ramping their sales at the same time with an improving an improving backlog. So they outperformed, they grew at a hyper pace and they raised guidance. the way these trends are shaping up, I expect in the subsequent report to have the same things be repeated where they they grow at a hyper pace, they outperform and they raise guidance again. So what I see here is the early stages of of a long and persistent robust growth cycle in which the company consistently outperforms, consistently raises guidance and consistently leads analysts to raise their targets uh which is what's happening now. >> Did we see any revisions from analysts after that miss on the gap for Emprius? There have been no uh revisions immediately after the release. There have been some commentaries. Uh they're all kind of panning the gap earnings miss pointing more instead to the revenue strength and the guidance improvement looking forward to more expected strength and the inflection to profitability. You know, as it stands, uh we have nine reading as a moderate buy and uh they forecast the stock to go back up to where it was right around $20. >> All right. So, is this drop right after earnings a buying opportunity for you, Thomas? >> For me, it is. Uh, like I said, it's a knee-jerk reaction. It's driven more by market mechanics than it is by the results. The move has brought us back down to what I consider to be a nice entry point. So, it is it is a good buying opportunity. >> So, these first couple of names that we looked at on this list are these small cap upand cominging companies. If you are looking for some bigger names, those mega cap companies that are worth adding to your portfolio after earnings, make sure to check out this latest free premium article on marketbeat.com. It's a list of the five uh big stocks that are the best buys after earnings. You can find that article by scanning the QR code or going to the link in the description. Again, it's free for our YouTube viewers right now if you want to look at that article on marketbeat.com. Thomas, let's get on to the third name on your list. And this is one that has had such an incredible growth story in the last month and the last year, too. >> Yeah, that's Bloom Energy. Uh Bloom Energy is really like uh this out of nowhere story. Um, I really liked watching it unfold uh because they make they make power cells, you know, and power cells were having a really hard time gaining traction for years and then all of a sudden Bloom's business started to surge and that's because of data centers. Data centers need a lot of power. Uh, right now you might think that GPUs or HBM are a constraint for the market, but really what it is is power. These things need to be powered and Bloom Energy provides a power source that's available today. There's lots of potential power sources for data centers in including, you know, the small modular reactors. Those are still years away from deployment. Bloom Energy is deploying technology today. It's seen in the results. It's seen in the guidance. It's also seen in the news flow from the hyperscalers, especially Oracle, who has leaned real hard into their technology. I think Oracle's got contracted enough capacity to cover about half their planned expansion, which is is quite a bit. And we do know that uh Bloom is in talks with all the other hyperscalers for their data centers as well, which suggests that this story really is just getting started. >> Yeah. And the story though has already grown so much. And I think when investors look at this chart and they see the growth, it's hard to say is this going to grow even higher than it has right now. But it's it's kind of like last year with the memory story where you thought that SanDisk or Western Digital couldn't possibly go any higher and then they did. And I think Bloom has been a very similar story. This one up 1,500% in a year, up over 100% in the last month. It just keeps growing and growing and growing. Do you think that this catalyst could slow down or do you think that this, like you just said, is just the start? And how much more growth could this kind of a company see? >> Well, I mean, it could slow down, but I I don't think that it will. And I don't want to get into that too much because I don't want to give away things that I want to talk about later on in this video. But, uh, the data center buildout is really just begun. And as far as Bloom Energy goes, its technology is applicable not just to data centers. Data centers are affirming its ability, affirming the ability for fast deployments and ease of use. And when the rest of the world sees this happening, we're going to have industries across verticals clamoring to bloom for their own power supplies. Globally, we're we're we're facing a power crunch. We're looking for all different kinds of ways to provide power for neighborhoods, for businesses, for communities, industries. Uh so Bloom power cells certainly fit the bill. uh they're available now. I certainly do expect to see their business continue to accelerate and grow with business diversifying away from just data centers and AI. >> Now, the stock story does remind me of a conversation we had on the channel just a couple of days ago where we had an analyst on who was talking about Oracle and his biggest concern about Oracle for the future is that so much of their contracts and a huge portion of their revenue was coming from one customer and that's OpenAI. And so hearing you say that Oracle is a huge supporter for Bloom and one of Bloom's biggest customers, I do wonder about that ripple effect of if open if Oracle is supported just by open AAI. Is Bloom also counting on this one egg to do well or is it diversifying its customer base a little more? >> Bloom's business is not exposed just to open AAI nor is Oracles. We need to remember that Oracle is the database and high performance computing provider of choice for the hypers scale industry. All hyperscalers are in business with Oracle. Its products are ubiquitous across the cloud regardless of where you are or which hyperscalers you're using. Its exposure to uh to open AAI is is part of the equation, but it's not a deal breaker. It's not their only business and it's certainly not going to impact their future outlook with the entire industry growing as fast as it is. >> Are we seeing that with Bloom as well where they are getting exposure to all of the hyperscalers and not just one more than others? >> Well, right. So right now Oracle is their primary business driver but as I said we know that Bloom is in talks with all the hyperscalers. They all need power sources. So I am expecting to see Bloom announce uh sales deals with all of these hyperscalers for more deployments over the upcoming months and quarters. >> Is Bloom even at the crazy growth it's seen in the last month and the last year. Is this still a buy right now for you? >> Oh, this stock is still buyable right now. The market's pulling back. So, we're going to want to wait and see it confirm support before that rebound begins. Uh, but based on the technicals, might see this market at the very least retesting its highs and most likely setting new highs and continuing the trend for some time. >> All right, let's move on to that fourth stock you have on your buy list after earnings. What is this name? >> Uh, that's Astera Labs. Astera Labs is also this kind of a darkhorse stock that came out of nowhere and now it's really rocketing higher because of AI. Astera is one of the nuts and bolts plays for AI. It makes the components that connect GPUs and CPUs together. It goes inside the servers. We know that hyperscalers are buying and deploying servers by the thousands, which just means lots and lots of business for Astera. And when we talk about this next stock, I'll explain to you guys why I think there's getting ready to be an acceleration of data center construction and why I think that the outlook is actually way too low for data centers in general, for AI, for this stock, and for most other AI stocks. >> Yeah, we have a lot to talk about in the data center buildout for sure. And I saved this last one on your list for the end for a reason, just so we could talk about that. But let's talk about Astero Labs in particular. Which portion of the AI buildout are they involved in? And why are they starting to see this sudden growth? Why are they just becoming part of the story? >> They're involved with the infrastructure part of the buildout because they are making the connectors, the switches, the timers, the power control sources that are controlling the memory flow between CPUs and GPUs. Now, these products are inside the server. Uh so they're not connecting servers together or necessarily connecting all the AI computers together inside the data center, but they are essential for the servers themselves and are very fundamental to the AI buildout. Over time, they're supported not only by the buildout for the training phase, but also for the inference phase and then supported even longer term by the refurbishment cycle. We know that data centers and AI GPU CPUs use a lot of power all the time. We're expecting them to burn out about twice as fast as normal normal hardware and that supports a very robust upgrade cycle for the entire industry. >> Yeah. Let's talk about the earnings report for Astera Labs. What did we see as far as the the money coming in and profitability for this company? Were there a lot of different factors in that earnings report that make you bullish on having another positive earnings report next quarter? >> Multiple business partners, multiple vendors, uh new product launches, nextgen technology, all driving the business all points to acceleration. Uh when you tie this into the data center trends, which just so show that spending is increasing, there is follow through on the spending. It's not just the GPUs, that's all the connectors that put them together. It's not just the servers, it's also the data centers themselves. Uh so we know that this thing is happening right now with you know NVIDIA's and all the other AI infrastructure stocks. All their revenues are swelling and the outlooks are growing. We can only assume that the same is going to happen for Asterero Labs over time. >> All right. And this one still a buy even though it's up almost 70% in the last month. Does it still have higher decline? >> It does still have higher decline. Right now we're we're near a peak. I think this a near-term stopping off point. The market may pull back a little bit more, possibly down to 180, maybe even a little bit lower, but the preceding three, four weeks before that were very strong, show a very strong and strengthening market. So, I would expect to see a rebound form fairly soon, and then new highs to be set, you know, pretty shortly after that. >> I'm already waiting to hear in the comments from the people who hate hearing about stocks to buy after they've had a big runup. But, I think you're making a great case for why this is just the start of a big runup, and that will definitely apply to the last stock on your list. This is one that I added to my Bridgen Spies watch list early on. It's one of the the stocks that you've been very bullish on for almost two years now. And this one is performing incredibly well because it had a huge jump this week. Let's talk about one of your favorite names out there for your fifth stock on this buy list. >> Yeah, that's Advanced Micro Devices. In my my article uh recapping the earnings, um I said that this is a move that's been years in the making and it has. Nvidia had the first mover advantage with its GPUs and its and its uh its its ecosystem to support it. Um AMD had to kind of catch up to that point to where it could start being a real viable competitor. Uh but now it's done that. Also in that time within this time frame what's happened is the initial data center buildout has kind of caught up to where we're entering the inference phase which is driving demand for CPUs, one of AMD's strengths. But we're also seeing demand for GPUs which is you know for the the AI models and AI training also driving business. And this is all ahead of the upcoming MI450 launch. The MI450 launch I think is the real game changer and real catalyst for this market. Uh because when you start to dig into what uh MI450 does and what it's capable of versus Nvidia's black wells and upcoming Vera Rubin models, it's starting to look like Nvidia products are going to be the core or the the the real brain of AI supercomputers, not just on the data center scale, but on a multiple data center scale in which a single Nvidia based AI factory will support enough models for numerous AMD powered inference centers. So you think one Nvidia data center for model training, you might have five or six or eight or 10 AMD data centers for the inference phase. So in in this outlook, it's possible for AMD's revenue growth to exceed Nvidia's. It's only a matter of time for it to happen and there is evidence already that it is happening because all the hyperscalers are committing to or planning to incorporate AMD GPUs into their infrastructure which means they're they're providing choice but they're also seeking some differentiated services to where they have Nvidia's products which are really more about raw power and computing AMD's products which are more about memory and inference. So, it's just a matter of time for this thing to happen. But you think right now we're building out a bunch of Nvidia data centers. Each one of those that's on the map right now is probably going to be accompanied by at least one AMD data center and possibly several of them. >> Yeah, I love to hear your conviction for the future of AMD. And I think that people watching this, especially if you've not followed our channel for very long, are probably saying, "Well, it's easy to say that AMD is going to do well after it's had this great earnings report. It's up uh 86% in the last month. It's on this huge runup." But I I also want to note you have been saying the same story about AMD of it's just a matter of time before this happens since last year when it was the falling knife that everybody called the falling knife that said stay away from this stock. It's it's destroying portfolios everywhere. And that was one year ago in April when we were on the tariff downturn. This stock fell harder than most and you were still bullish on the outlook of AMD. Even when it was on the downtrend, it was closer to the $80 range. Today we're up over $400 uh 300 more than 300% gains in one year. And so what has kept you convicted on that? Is it do you feel vindicated? Do you feel like what you said was going to happen is now happening or do you still feel like that story has more to unfold yet? >> I do feel vindicated. What I thought was going to happen is happening except the story has grown since then and it's even bigger than I first thought. You know, last year we're thinking about this. It was more like you know apples and apples. AMD is in position to catch up with Nvidia and be an apple toapple comparison. But now the story is changing in which the ecosystem is maturing and we know that there are differentiated qualities to these two different lines of GPUs and and their their supporting architecture to where they're complimentary to each other. You know where Nvidia goes AMD is going to follow because it provides some differentiated performance. You know, you're going to have enterprises that are focusing on training models, some that are going to be focusing on inference for their for their customers, and they're going to need both kinds. Uh the need is seen is evidently clear in the hyperscaler, you know, activity. They're building out both kinds. You know, Oracle again is like the primary one. They lean real hard into it real fast. They're planning to build some advanced AMD hyper uh data centers uh very soon. They're going to be one of the the first customers to do so. But looking forward, I think that the the revenue growth is going to uh it'll top what I thought would happen before. I mean, triple digit growth as as a lowball estimate. Uh Lisa Sue herself double her estimate, doubled her estimate for the CPU total addressable market to $120 billion. So that doubles the outlook for just that one segment. And there are several other segments that are driving business as well. Yeah, we've certainly seen in this AI story where you think that a company has grown as much as it can grow and then it continues to blow those numbers out of the water. Nvidia is another one of those examples of an AI story that just continues to grow and grow more and more over time and you certainly made a great case for AMD doing the same. Thomas, thank you so much for getting this list together of these five names that you are still very bullish on after earnings. Let me know in the comments what you think. Do you think that they're still worth chasing even though they've had this big jump run up right after earnings? Or are you one who only likes to follow them when they're in a downtrend? I'd be curious to hear what you have to say in the comments. If you want to hear more stock recommendations from Thomas, make sure to watch his May buy list. These are the five names he is very bullish on for a buy in May. And of yes, AMD is also on this list, but there's four other names you should take a look at,