BUY HEAVY! 9 Stocks I’m Buying for My $2.9 Million Portfolio

Hey bow tie nation, Joseph Hog here with your weekly stock market update before the week starts with the stocks to watch and the stock market news you need to see. Doing something different this week, highlighting only the nine stocks I'm watching this week, the biggest holdings in my portfolio, including updates to super micro computer, ticker, SMCI, Nvidia, and Marvel Technologies, MRVL. I'll also be doing a big picture video tomorrow explaining how these Treasury bond crisis could be the next big market crash and the five stocks you need to be buying now. Make sure you join the community and watch for that one. But let's get to those stocks to watch though because it's a big earnings week with Crowdstrike Holdings, Nvidia, and Salesforce this week. Crowdstrike Holdings up first. CRWD reports earnings on Wednesday with the stock up 62% year-to- date and one of my favorites in the cyber security theme. Other cyber security companies like Palo Alto Networks have already reported strong growth beating revenue forecast echoing what that company's CTO Lee Clarish said in May that companies had only a 3 to fivemonth window to prepare for the coming wave of AI enabled cyber attacks. That's coming through in higher revenue growth and just last week Bank of America raised its price target on cyber security stocks including another of my holdings Zcaler ticker ZS. Revenue for CrowdStrike is expected up 23% this year with earnings leveraged up 32% for some of the best growth in the industry on this company's undeniable best-in-class Falcon platform. As with all these cyber security stocks though, you pay for that growth with the shares trading for a very expensive 40 times price to sell. So, this is one of those stocks that management has to continuously blow the doors off earnings or or investors end up disappointed and they have done a good job with it. With the stock up following three of the last four earnings reports, though they did disappoint last quarter, the market is expecting about a 6% move one way or the other after earnings this week. Analysts are cautious near-term, believing the expensive valuation gives this one limited upside with that downside risk still in place. And I'm inclined to believe it. The average price target of 36 analysts here is for $211 per share which only about 11% higher while some downside targets are looking for a big drop. And Crowdstrike is my second largest cyber security holding here up 66% though I have started to take profits on it and a few others in the last month after that big run in cyber security from May. Folks, I still love the cyber security theme and I'm going to be looking to buy any dips on these, but they are getting a little bit too expensive for my taste near term. Nvidia NVDA is going to be the big earnings news this week when it reports on Wednesday with the AI trend setter only up 16% so far this year. The growth is still expected to be nothing short of amazing. Sales up 96% for the quarter, which is even more surprising when you consider the scale of this. Sales of $92 billion just for the 3 months. Earnings are also expected nearly double to $29 a share and to keep close to that same pace of growth for the full year. But with the stock's run slowing down, that's brought value back into these shares, trading at about 20 times price to sales and 24 times forward earnings valuation. Now, both of these are about 25% discount to the valuation the stock has been trading at over the last year. So maybe an opportunity to buy in here if you believe that AI spending boom is going to continue. That said, management has not done well on managing those earnings expectations. and shares have fallen after every earnings report over the last year, though usually only by less than about 3% on the news. Investor expectations are just so high for CEO Hang and company that it's difficult to always be so optimistic. There is reason to believe this time they could surprise higher with recent news that H200 chips have started shipping into China in small batches. This could give Wang enough room to chalk up those bigger shipments and return to sales growth in a huge Chinese market. Analysts do see more upside here with the average price target among 25 analysts at $300 per share, almost 40% upside and a high target of $425 per share. Even if this dips this week, I like the valuation here for a long-term investment. Salesforce sticker CRM could be one of the big surprises of the week when it reports earnings on Wednesday with the stock crumbling 22% this year on those fears that that AI agents are going to replace its traditional seat-based enterprise software the company provides. To quiet those bears, Salesforce will need to show that its agentforce platform, helping companies develop and use their own AI agents is growing revenue faster than the the loss to that traditional software business. Wall Street is expecting sales growth of 10 to 11% for the quarter and the year isn't a really high hurdle. So, there is room for upside surprise here. The drop in the stock has made it relatively inexpensive and could be a good deal if management can surprise on that outlook. Now the stock is trading for about 4.5 times sales which is way under the six plus times it traded at over the last year as much as 50% upside to that valuation. Now analysts have been slowly coming back to this stock on that valuation with JP Morgan raising its price target to $250 a share earlier this month while city raised its target to $24 each. Now the average one-year target is for $238 per share which be about a 16% upside. Though there are still some bears out there with that downside target of $160 per share. This is a mixed bag over the last four earnings reports with the stock up in two but falling in the other two reports. CEO Beni off has always been a great showman but has struggled to impress the market and move past those AI fears. Now I think investor sentiment is just low enough that they can beat forecasts and surprise to the upside lifting those shares this week. But it's still going to be a hard stock to own over the next year or more. Even on the short pops, the AIAR is going to come back into this stock and push the push it lower. So, if you are buying, it's probably got to be more of a short-term trade on those earnings reports and the potential rather than a long-term hold. Marll Technologies, ticker MRVL, follows last week's 13% pop in the shares with earnings reporting on Thursday of this week. The company reported a deal with Google to provide TPU chips, those tensor processing units, the specialized AI semiconductors, and the right for Google parent to Alphabet to buy up to 12 billion in shares of Marvel at just $26 per share. That would be about a 7% ownership in the company. And since shares of Marvel are already trading for $251 each, Google is now locked in as a big owner of the company. It also means Google has an interest in diverting more of its TPU and custom chip needs to Marvel and possibly away from Broadcom to her AVGO which had been doing most of its business before and why we saw a big drop in its shares last week. Those shares of Broadcom dropped 12% last week wiping out $230 billion in stock value on the fears of lower revenue from that missed customer. And Marll is expected to post 35% sales growth for the quarter and 40% for the full year with earnings up 42% this year to $45 per share, writing that demand for custom AI chips that could continue. But like a lot of these hot AI stocks though, you're going to be paying for that growth with the stock trading expensive 23 times on a priceto sales basis. That means investors are paying $23 for every dollar in sales generated. Put that into perspective, investors were willing to pay just 10 times sales. So $10 for every dollar in revenue generated in the July quarter of last year, much cheaper valuation. So with Marvel now trading more than twice as expensive on that sales valuation, the risk is that investor sentiment and those expectations are just too high. Management has done a fairly good job of beating those expectations with the stock up three in the last four earnings reports and up by a solid 18% following the Q4 report. And the options market is pricing in an 8% move one way or the other on this week's report. So expect a lot of volatility in this one. Analysts are hesitant though after this big run at the average share price target of $280 each only about 11% higher and the low target watching for a 28% drop back lower. Now I've been recommending Marll over the last year on its place in that semiconductor supply chain for AI but this stock has tripled in just the last 8 months. So, I would be taking some profits and just waiting for a dip to buy back in. Now, understand that said, I am lower risk tolerance and hate losing money, which does make me sell too early on some of these. If you can ignore the dips, I still think you can hold this one long-term, but it is trading very expensive right now. We've still got five more stocks I'm watching, including one stock up 26% last week alone. First though, don't miss this exclusive community discount on my stock trading and technical analysis course. save 30% off the regular price. The complete course includes more than 30 videos on how professional investors trade stocks and the technical analysis they use. You're also going to get the bonus material on fundamental analysis, trade examples, and a trading worksheets to follow your trades. Click through the link I'll leave in the description and check out the free preview or try it risk-f free for 7 days. You know, we use that fundamental analysis for to find those long-term stocks here on the channel, but that technical analysis in this course shows me exactly when to buy and sell a stock. And that special 30% coupon is only good for the next 3 days. So, check out that link below or just scan the QR code here. Reddit, ticker RDDT, has been on a roller coaster since I recommended it in late July. First up 28% on the news that it's going to be included in the S&P 500 index, then coming back down 15% as that excitement faded last week. Now, inclusion into the S&P index means all the ETFs that track that index have to buy those shares with JP Morgan estimating that could bring up additional buying pressure of 16.7 million shares, about 8% of the shares outstanding. Now, a lot of those have likely already been purchased. So, a drop in that buying has seen that excitement come out a little bit, but these are long-term holders in those ETFs. So, that's going to mean some support for the stock. But that news wasn't on my list of the two biggest catalyst when I recommended the stock last month. And we can still look forward to a settlement with Anthropic that could mean a billion dollar payday. And news on the company's negotiations with Google to allow its search engine to train its AI models. Both of these would be positive catalysts and I think send the stock back up to that $170 to $200 per share. Tempest AI, ticker TEM, jumped 26% last week and is up 16% since mid July when I pointed out that both President Trump and Nancy Pelosi are buying the shares. The surge last week was on favorable phase 3 results from Maderna and Merc for their cancer vaccine, a development validating Tempest's recent $ 1.5 billion acquisition of Personnelis and its push into that minimal residual disease and precision oncology. Now, Tempest has an enormous clinical and genomic data set it's using to leverage into that precision medicine platform using AI to diagnose and create treatments. I'm also watching cryptocurrencies and related stocks there jumping 30% last week. First on news of the US Treasury would increase its bond buying program, pushing more money into the system and then on investor worries over the US hitting $40 trillion in debt. Those related stocks and the crypto were up broadly and with a lot of momentum still. Mara Holdings took her M was up 30% followed by Circle Internet Group to CRCL up 28%. Strategy MSTR up 26%. Coinbase COIN up 24% and the cryptocurrencies themselves Ethereum and Bitcoin up more than 20% on the week. Now, Ethereum continues to be one of my largest holdings with over 1.6 6 million in shares of the two ETFs, the iShares Ethereum Trust, ticker ETHA, and the Grayscale Mini ETH Trust, ticker ETH, now up over $250,000 on just these two positions. Alibaba Holdings, ticker BABA, fell about 6% on its earnings report last week, though was down less than 2% for the week. Investors didn't like the increase in AI spending that drove a 75% drop in profits from last year as the company spends $10 billion a quarter on building out its AI model and that cloud infrastructure. That news overshadowed the 45% revenue surge from the cloud services segment, showing that that spending is being put to good use to grow those sales. We're still up over 30% from buying back in and recommending it in the stock in late June. I'm still holding it to for a run back to at least $150 and higher. Folks, we know that US companies are flocking to these Chinese AI models as a way to manage those costs. And Alibaba's Quinn is one of the best out there, comparable to Anthropic's Fable model. Shares are still relatively attractive here, especially after last week's disappointment. And I think next earnings report surprises to the upside. Also, big news in Cloudflare. Ticker NE gave back 11% last week, though it's still up 5% from recommending it in midJune on the company's position as as that critical gateway for AI agents. In this new trend we're seeing for companies maximizing efficiency and lowering the cost of their own AI agents. Cloudflare's gateway sits right between in the middle of the company's agent and that AI model to route the AI they use to to the most efficient way possible. The stock has sold off late last year on fears of AI would destroy its software business but have jumped 41% this year. So a lot of last week's drop I think was just profit taking after a big run. I still think the shares are a good buy here on a very strong growth of 30% plus expected this year to $2.9 billion and and that trend to the AI agent management. Analysts see the stock up to a $343 per share on average over the next year. Another 23% upside from here, but there is still that downside fear and it's still $136 low target. Now, looking across the rest of my portfolio here, and my largest positions, Super Microcomputer, ticker SMCI, has come down from its recent peak, but it's still a good value for investors that can stomach the roller coaster in this stock. The company reported last week that an internal investigation found no evidence that senior management beyond those already indicted were part of that chip smuggling operation reported this year. So far, it's only been director Wally Louu and a few other employees and contractors found to be smuggling Nvidia chips into China. A nation whether that's to be believed or not is really not the important point. More important is that if that internal investigation could find no evidence that other leadership was involved probably means the government isn't likely to find any evidence as well and investors don't have to worry about another smoking gun. I'm still holding the shares though. have sold call options against them with strikes ranging from 27 up to $40 through the January expiration, meaning a lot of my position is going to be closed out over the next 5 months. I do still think that the stock has that upside value left on its valuation, but I'm just tired of the roller coaster and the management headaches. I'm also still holding shares of Symbotic, ticker SYM, up 65% even after the drop this year and think the company proves it can revolutionize warehouse and logistics. SoFi Technologies ticker SOFI is up 12% since adding it back into the portfolio a few months ago, but still a good buy back up to at least $20 a share here. Here, Soundhound AI took our SOU in as the lone loser in my top 10 holdings, down 20% since adding it back to the portfolio last year. Now, we made a ton of money on this one from recommending it down under $4 a share in February 2024 and then taking profits just under $20 a share late last year. But the stock has struggled all this year. What still gives me confidence here though is the stock's strong pop on its most recent earnings, showing investors are still positive on the growth and the long-term story for this company. The AI voice assistant leader is still growing sales at 40% plus a year and moving closer to profitability. So, I'm going to continue to hold for now. Don't miss your 30% discount to that technical analysis course and see exactly when to buy and sell a stock. Don't forget to join the Let's Talk Money community by tapping that subscribe button and turning on notifications.