5 Hot Stocks to Buy Now: September's Top Tech Picks With Upside Ahead

Will we see that September slowdown or does the market have other plans in [music] store? Joining us today is market feed analyst Thomas Hughes with a look at his five stocks to buy in September. Thomas, thank you so much for being here. This is one of our favorite monthly series. We do this at the start of every month looking ahead at the five names that you are most excited to watch in September. There's a lot to talk about heading into September and we already discussed some of that in a video earlier this week where you shared some of your outlook in a date that you were looking to for a market rally towards year end. But let's talk about September specifically. What do you think could happen with the market? >> Well, historically speaking, September can be volatile. Um the people are coming back from the summer getting positioned for the fall and for the winter. So, there can be some selling, some sideways movement, some price corrections. Uh but it generally leads to a more bullish um fall and Q4 season. So I'm looking at September as being a time to to get into some good positions, some solid positions that will uh carry uh profits into the into the year end. >> Yeah. Before we get into your five picks for the month. Let's just talk about what happened this week. We wrapped up earnings season with really one of the biggest reports of the season uh on Wednesday this past week. What do you think about how the market is responding to the end of earnings? I think the Q2 season was very reassuring for the market. There were a lot of fears about the cess apocalypse, AI disruption, the sustainability of growth. And what we're seeing really is that the AI bubble is still growing. In some places, it's still accelerating. It certainly is still bigger than we thought it was. It will be bigger than we have anticipated it to be and that it will continue to produce revenue and profits for companies for the foreseeable future. Yeah, we are definitely seeing the market kind of popping this week thanks to the end of that earning season and like you said it is really strong. A lot of that led by the tech and AI sector for sure. But there are definitely winners and losers in AI right now and I think that's where investors can really get an edge in the market. So we're going to dive into five names that you were looking at in September heavily focused on that AI and tech sector. But you also wrote another special report. This is a premium report on Market Beat on the seven best AI stocks to invest in today. These are the names that are still very early in their AI growth story that is worth an investment today. They haven't already run up too far. These are names that are really relevant for investors today, especially in that AI story. So, scan the QR code, click the link in the description, and you can get that free report on the seven best AI stocks to invest in today. It's normally $30. It is free for our YouTube viewers if you just scan that code or click the link in the description. Okay, Thomas, let's get on to your September buy list. What is the first company that you are looking at? >> Oh, well, that first company is Nvidia. This is the source of the earnings report that you mentioned earlier. I don't know what there is to say about it except wow again after four years of just mind-blowing wow. It did it again. Uh so outperformed by a wide margin, accelerated growth back over 100% provided hot margin forecasting sustained acceleration. But even more importantly within that they gave their first viewpoint for next year 2000 uh fiscal 2028 which is at least uh 2,000 basis points better than expected. Uh pretty much what Nvidia did was just reaffirm and highlight and just shine a glaring spotlight on the fact that the market is not pricing in AI correctly. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of what AI means to the the global tech ecosystem and Nvidia is at at the core of it. Within that report, there was also lots of um ecosystem updates just showing it expanding its reach, deepening its its its touch into all the different sectors of the AI stack, really just entrenching itself as, you know, the source pinnacle of AI today. >> I have a lot of follow-up questions on Nvidia itself and and some of the the news that came out in that report, what it means long term. But I want to talk first about another stock that we often see on your monthly buy list, and that's AMD. Everyone knows you are an AMD bull, but I I I think it's also important to point out you're also an Nvidia bull. Is there space for both of these stocks to do well? >> I I think there is, and that's what the metrics are pointing to. Um, AMD's strengths have been unfolding alongside Nvidia's strength. So, these two things are happening simultaneously. To me, that's a sign of of how big the market really is. And again, that fundamental misunderstanding of what AI means to the ecosystem and to business long term. >> All right. Well, let's talk about demand. What are we seeing for demand with Nvidia that really is kind of laying the scene for the entire AI story? What does the market have wrong here and how did that show up in what Nvidia reported this last week? >> Well, demanded one, the results were much stronger, like billions of dollars stronger and this is after years of triple digit growth. So, there's just like demand is there, but then also within that, the demand is being sustained. It's not just a one-time thing. It's been going on for years. It's going to continue into the next year. So 70% growth is a down tick from 100% growth, but this is 70% after it's grown 100% for 5 years in a row. That's insane. It's just it's just too much. And then also within the guidance in the commentary, there were some hints that maybe they could do even better because there were some capacity constraints mentioned, you know, and that is just driving that big ecosystem push to expand capacity, which is just driving the outlook for for earnings and revenue for the entire ecosystem in a systemic way. Yeah, I want to talk about the market reaction to that report and and all of these signs that you're pointing to. We saw the stock price for Nvidia and a lot of the whole AI sector jump significantly on Thursday. It's still on your buy list for September. What does this boost in the stock price post this earnings report mean for investors who might be looking to add the stock? Do you want to get in on Nvidia immediately after such a strong and positive earnings report that has really all of the market paying attention to it right now? >> To me, the market's signaling a buy. uh because typically and we've talked about this many times, Nvidia will sell off after the earnings report because we've been expecting this strength. The market reaction after the release was to sell off initially but only marginally so went down to the near-term uh support target and then rebounded strongly. Now it's up 5 or 6%. That tells me the market was waiting for this move to happen, was anticipating some strength and was using it as a buy signal. They're not waiting around for the market to correct anymore. They're just buying today. I think that this shows the market will continue to buy and carry through throughout the fall and that plays into the long-term, you know, the price outlook for Nvidia. Technically, we're looking at triple digit gains. The valuation suggests tripledigit gains and the analyst price target trends all suggest tripledigit gains. So, right now, to me, this is an execution story. Um, Nvidia stock price may move up quickly or slowly. There will be corrections along the way, but we are on track for more tripledigit gains with as much as 200 to 300% more to come over time based on the way the earnings outlook is unfolding. >> Now, one other thing about Nvidia, and it's a response I hear from plenty of viewers out there who really feel like Nvidia is not the kind of growth stock that investors should be looking at right now. You look at their returns and they're only up about 22% in the last year for investors versus plenty of other AI stocks that are seeing 100 200% returns. And of course, that's the kind of return so many retail investors are chasing with the AI story right now. So, even with those kind of 20% versus 200% returns, do you think Nvidia is still an important AI stock for investors to be adding today in September? >> Oh, absolutely. I mean, the past year or so has been consolidation while the market figures out what's going on. And the signs with this last report is that AI is still going on, the boom is still going on, the upside potential is still going on, and the valuation is still very deep. So, so yes, I think that now is a good a good time to get into Nvidia. >> All right, let's move on to the second stock on your September buy list, and this is a name that has made the list before, but it's one we don't talk about as often. >> Yeah, that's MongoDB. uh they provide database services but right now the story is is their Atlas platform which just helps companies um deploy the platform but also uh operate it uh build agentic workflows for their development process and to automate a lot of their back-end operations. uh it's providing lots of utility for its clients and we're seeing that in the results which just show a lot of traction and momentum um increased penetration increased client usage and it's just really emerging as an AI critical name uh all being reflected in the stock price right now. >> Yeah, we did see a similar boost in MongoDB this week just with that excitement around AI. Let's talk a little bit about where this company falls in the overall AI infrastructure story and the continued AI growth story down the road. Well um MDB MongoDB is critical for the application phase but also for the also for the development phase because um the database platform is critical for for AI for its its development and it's a development platform and a automation tools but also down the road for inference because the businesses training models today will eventually shift to the businesses that are deploying inference and using inference tomorrow and so this entire system is very uh very critical for operating and controlling and managing your data in a crosscloud multi cloud kind away. Now, >> this is one of those names though that did get kind of wrapped up in the software story this year. We saw a huge downturn and the stock price has had a huge rebound uh just in the last month or so. Really in July, it started to rebound. And so, I want to talk about the timing of adding this stock to your portfolio right now. We've had a really big runup in just the last three months, up about 45% after it was kind of still stuck in that low during that that software downturn early on this year. Uh what do you think about getting into this stock given the recent price action? >> Well, right now you're not really going to want to chase MongoDB. You're going to want to wait for price pullbacks. Um as it stands, the price action is very near um a resistance point. So, uh the real trigger for me will be when the market moves to another fresh high. When we move above the 470 level and confirm it as support, that will show me the market is inflecting and really following through on the signals that have been given so far uh since April. >> All right. So, this isn't a buy in early September. It's one to watch throughout the month of September. Do you think that this is one that could pull back in the next month, especially if we see a marketwide September slowdown? >> I mean, I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but right now it looks like this market is consolidating at the top of its range and it's preparing to move higher. Um, it's just a matter of time. >> All right, let's talk a little bit more about what analysts say about the future of this company. We did see some revisions and changes again when this was getting looped into what was happening with software. Are analysts continuing to move this one a little bit higher? Is that the outlook really strong for MongoDB? >> Uh the outlook is strong and what we've seen in the recent activity is a bottoming in sentiment. So the the near-term headwinds of sentiment kind of decline, deteriorating is over. Analysts are back into a more bullish posture and they're helping to provide support for the market. >> All right. So two critical tech names to begin with. What is the third stock that you are looking at in September? >> Snowflake. Um it's another uh data focused business. Um it's got um a unique offering and that it allows enables uh businesses and and highly governed industries, highly regulated industries uh to remain compliant while using AI behind these secure firewalls. Also enabling um really easy access to data [clears throat] across enterprise networks without having to um expose the data to risk copying or sending out different files different places. everybody can kind of use the same files, work from the same the same data source and it's uh it's emerging as AI critical um in the development process for a lot of these companies. >> This is a name that you have also talked about for I think the last two years being very bullish on this name but we have seen plenty of volatility in those last two years too and right now it's volatility to the upside. It's this one is up quite a bit. This one's up over 80% in the last three months. Let's talk about all that volatility. Where is the real value of this stock and is the market still just trying to figure it out with all the ups and downs we've seen? >> Well, the market is trying to figure out but what's happened is just over the last couple years there was a CEO change. There was some fears of slowing growth, the fears of the SAS apocalypse meltdown. But since then, their results have confirmed what other um AI critical software companies have shown, which is just that these companies are better able to deploy AI than AI is able to disrupt their businesses. Uh they're showing plenty of demand. It's driving revenue and growth. Um growth reacelerated for this company is outperforming expectations. Guidance is better than expected. Profitability is there. All leading the analysts uh to raise their price targets and lead the market higher. Uh so right now what we are in is a discovery phase. Uh while that's underway, the upside potential is is virtually unlimited until the analysts start to see a top to the growth and a top to the price targets. >> Let's talk a little bit about what the big money is doing from Wall Street. the institutions here uh only about 65% institutional ownership which isn't a huge percentage for such a large company but there is something to look at and that's how much recent institutional buying there's been just in the last quarter. What does that signal mean to you Thomas? >> Yeah well one the 65% is still pretty decent for such a large company because it is pretty widely held. There's a lot of retail interest but within that the uh institutions have been pretty aggressively bullish. they've been buying on a quarterly basis over the trailing 12 months. But with so many of these tech companies that I've been covering, uh their activity really spiked in Q3 set um you know a noticeable record high underpinning the stock price movement. Uh to me this limits downside risk because we can expect them to buy any selloffs and uh help amplify any upside movements. All right, same question as the first two that we talked about, and that's whether it's a buy right at the start of uh September, where the stock is right now, or is it one to watch for some potential changes in that stock price over the next month? >> Snowflake looks like a pretty good buy today. It is up near the high of where it's been trading. Uh but the price action is very bullish. It's showing support at the 30-day moving average. What I see in play is is a bull flag continuation pattern. Uh so assuming we get a break to the upside, this market's going to continue rising. We'll probably see, you know, 400 by early next year, um, if not higher. >> All right, let's move on to that fourth company that you were looking at as a buy in September. >> Yeah, that's Octa. Octa is a company that has been on our radar for a long time. They were doing really well uh right after the pandemic, but they had some struggles. Uh, they've been wallowing near long-term lows for years since then, but have regained traction now, and that's due to AI. Uh it just so happens that AI is creating agentic traffic, agentic uh traffic. There are bots. They're they're they're moving through the system. They're trying to access files and do things for businesses. Some are known, some are unknown. And these bots equate to to IDs and to employees. And for Octa, that means it's business for them. Uh their business is to help companies identify and track and enable access to applications and software and data within their their their systems. And so for Octa, the rise of agentic traffic is just driving an exponential increase in need for their product and that's being reflected in in their results. >> Yeah, that demand is clearly showing up in their earnings report. Very strong. It's also showing up in their stock price. This stock has had a huge recovery from some of the lows that it was seen uh at the start of the summer, but really this whole summer has been incredibly strong for Octa. Do you see that acceleration continuing for this company and why? >> Oh, well because the results affirmed its place in the ecosystem. uh the the guidance is is is good and positive and points to acceleration with inference on the rise in its earliest phases. We can expect Octa continue to grow over time um indefinitely for the next couple of years because uh the the data centers that are going to be driving the inference are still not even built yet. So this is a very early phase story. Uh the stock price action is really very robust up more than 22% following the release. um clearly confirming u support at the at the prior resistance point setting a new high breaking out of consolidation range. Uh to me this market's on track for 200 uh probably to retest its all-time highs near 260. I think this one could happen amongst uh one of the quickest of any of these stocks just because of the way that it's set up. Uh the SAS apocalypse fears really had the market depressed and now it's kind of in a catch-up mode. >> What's not catching up for this one yet, Thomas, are those analyst price targets. uh they had really started moving those price targets down significantly because of this apocalypse that you talked about. But we all know that analysts price targets can often be wrong, especially when AI enters the story. There's plenty of times when we've talked about uh a stock flying high above a consensus price target and then it just continues to soar even higher and analysts eventually catch up to the price action that we're seeing. Could Octa be a part of that? And why why did it take so long for Octa to really see this kind of recovery and forward price movement? >> Well, it just took time for the agents to get active. I mean, we've been looking at AI for a long time, but the first part of the story was mostly open AI and chat bots. That's kind of progressed over time. Over the last year, we've seen the rise of agentic traffic and that's benefiting lots of other companies. Um, agentic traffic is definitely driving this one. Um, and that's part of what's, you know, leading the analysts to alter their their stance. As far as the sentiment trends go, what I see is a lot of upward revisions triggered by this release, putting a a bottom in the sentiment trend, kind of reinvigorating it, leading the stock back to the high end of the of the target range, which is now pegged at 200, which is, you know, that next critical target that I mentioned. >> Okay, before we get on to the last stock on your list, which is a little bit different chart price action with the last one, but these first four companies that we've talked about on your September buy list are all incredibly strong right now. They all had uh recent spikes. They've all had a really strong last 30 to 90 days. Uh they had really strong earnings reports. Talk about why you like to look at stocks when they've had some recent strength. Is this a good time to be looking at adding a stock as an investor? Is it a good time to be looking at keeping these names on your watch list, waiting for that next massive pullback in the market that could come at some point? Just explain your theory a little bit about talking about four names in September that are all really strong right now. Well, when it comes to the market and investing, you want to go to where the market's interested and where the market's flowing. The companies that are producing the strength are the ones that the market wants to be invested in. Uh, I mean, to me, the story is in Nvidia and AI, but it could be boot barn and shoes for all I care if that's what the market was interested in. So, what I'm following is the story in the news and and the and the cash flow. And the cash flow is into AI. It's into these companies, the ones that are monetizing AI, and they're the ones that have the most robust outlook and the highest probabilities of their markets following through and driving the price actions to where the targets are pointing. >> And we've seen in the past that market sentiment can shift, the money in the market can absolutely move or really sometimes the money is still there and the market just moves on headlines or fears or or things that aren't. Are you specifically looking at the money and earnings and the demand, the backlogs, those sorts of things? Is that what you mean by saying following uh where the money and the interest in the market is? >> Those are all the things that peique the market's interest. Those are all the things that that drive the stock. But again, it's it's the market interest that I follow. Um those things to me all they help me gauge where the market's direction is going to be. Is the market going to be happy with this? Unhappy with this? Is this a near-term problem, a long-term problem? And so to me, that's what I look at the reports for in these markets where the market is interested and they're driving the price action. the news and the earnings especially is the most current, the most active news, the most important news. So those are the turning points for me as far as you know making my judgments and my predictions about where the market's going to go from there. >> Yeah. And those are the predictions that Thomas also shared about seven AI stocks to invest in today. This special report that he put together really looks at those forward projections and is looking at AI companies where the market will continue to move and where there is going to be a lot of continued growth. So, if you want to check out that free report today, scan the QR code, click the link in the description, and you can look at seven other names in the AI story that are absolutely worth uh looking at an investment today. So, don't miss that free report right now while you can. Okay, Thomas, let's get on to this last name. And this is one that recently came up in another discussion on our channel. So, I'm excited to hear your take on it. >> Yeah, and this is um Avironment Avone stock. They've struggled for the last couple years with a couple of issues, including a lost contract, integration issues with an acquisition. Uh, but this year, they're at bottom. They're showing a pretty firm bottom. The results show the business has regained traction, and it's pretty well positioned within the drone market, which we know is a pretty hot market. Right now, we're looking for the company to start executing on what has become a massive and growing backlog, which just means sustained growth, sustained profit, profitability, and capacity for capital returns down the road. Well, we know drone stocks are a hot market, or at least they were, but they've had a really hard summer. So, again, this is very different chart than the other stocks on the list that we're talking about today. Drone stocks have really been hit hard this summer, and we've done a few different videos talking about why that is. And one of it is just waiting to figure out where the the federal government allocations are going to be going, who's getting those contracts, how much will they be? Do you think that's really the only catalyst we're waiting on, or is there another reason that we're seeing a little bit of a depressed drone market over the summer? >> I think it could be that. Um, but it could just be market angst. I think a lot of it has to do with just market conditions. A lot of stocks that were flying high got sold off over the summer. The sell up in AVAB is more of a longerterm thing, not just from the summer. Uh, but generally speaking, stocks that were up were being targeted for profit taking and that has certainly been a headwind for for avironment whenever it has rebounded over the past year or so. >> Now, this one is down more than 40% in the last year. Is it a good time to to be looking at adding this one? Or could it be a situation where we're looking at a little bit of a falling knife where the stock price just continues to drop on a name like this? What will it take to turn it around? >> Yeah, I don't think that this one's got too much downside left in it. I think it's at the bottom and bouncing. It has pretty solid support down at these levels. There's not a lot of impedance right now for the market to start buying aggressively and drive the stock price higher. But I think those catalysts are coming uh because the backlog is really enormous and it's going to be realized over the coming quarters. We're expecting follow-on orders uh based on its its expansion into uh different segments of the defense industry. Um it's become more of a prime contractor than just a hardware provider. So now it's able to provide like complete systems to the government means it's got expanded access to to contracts and to bigger contracts. And that's the already current backlog. So, this is an execution story. That's one trigger, but then also there's additional contracts that we expect and just the general strength of the drone industry that that we're looking at. >> All right, a very different name to end this list on, but thank you so much for walking us through your five stocks that you are watching in September. Always love this series. If you want to see the stocks that Thomas was bullish on in August, make sure to watch that full interview here and see how those names are doing over the last month, too. It's a great time to look back and check that out, too. So watch the full interview