The recent boom in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is forecast to continue, with analysts predicting it could grow nearly 20-fold from 2021 through 2030, reaching a value of $1.8 trillion. The most-traded AI-focused stocks for March 2024 are already ballooning on the strength of the industry's growth, reaching one-year total returns of as much as 293%.
Cliff Jurkiewicz,vice president of global strategy for the talent platform Phenom, recommends that investors look to emerging AI legislation. "The next 12 months will be pivotal," he said, adding that New York City's law regulating AI's use in hiring processes was the first of its kind, but similar legislation could follow. "In the absence of federal legislation within the U.S., many states are stepping up to fill the void."
"Companies that have the best potential for long-term product and service viability around AI understand [commonalities between individual state regulations] and align it within their offerings," Jurkiewicz said.
Below, we explore five stocks trading on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the Nasdaq that had the highest average daily trading volume and currently use AI in a substantive way. All data are as of March 7, 2024.
Key Takeaways
- Investors looking to capitalize on the AI trend might wish to focus on companies meaningfully contributing to the AI boom.
- Over the coming year, investors should closely watch the development of AI legislation across individual states in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
- The most popular AI-focused stocks on the NYSE or the Nasdaq for March 2024 include AMD, Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon, and Intel.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)
- Average daily trading volume (30-day): 75.0 million
- Price: $211.34
- Market capitalization: $341.5 billion
- Performance (1-year): 155.2%
AMD is a semiconductor manufacturer that designs and manufactures computer processors and other related products. As a leading chip maker, AMD's products allow many other companies to utilize AI through data center, cloud, adaptive and embedded computing, and other offerings.
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
- Average daily trading volume (30-day): 59.8 million
- Price: $169.53
- Market capitalization: $2.6 trillion
- Performance (1-year): 10.9%
Tech behemoth Apple is among the largest companies in the world by market capitalization and is known globally for products ranging from the iPhone to iPads and various desktop and laptop computers. The company launched Vision Pro, its mixed-reality headset, in February.
NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA)
- Average daily trading volume (30-day): 52.9 million
- Price: $923.94
- Market capitalization: $2.3 trillion
- Performance (1-year): 293.4%
Semiconductor manufacturer NVIDIA has been at the forefront of the AI industry's growth because of the central role its chips have played in powering AI programs. In January, the company announced a new line of affordable graphics processing units (GPUs) and related products aiming to make generative AI tools more broadly accessible.
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)
- Average daily trading volume (30-day): 48.1 million
- Price: $176.99
- Market capitalization: $1.8 trillion
- Performance (1-year): 89.1%
E-commerce giant Amazon's involvement in AI has centered around its cloud services platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS provides generative AI and machine learning tools to customers across a variety of industries.
Intel Corp. (INTC)
- Average daily trading volume (30-day): 47.6 million
- Price: $46.12
- Market capitalization: $195.0 billion
- Performance (1-year): 80.4%
Intel is a chipmaker, data center solutions, and hardware developer that launched a line of processors in December designed specifically for use in AI applications.
Trading volume refers to the total number of shares of a particular stock traded during a certain timeframe. Higher trading volumes can be an indicator of the popularity of a stock or of certain trends in its market activity.
How We Selected Popular AI Stocks
Our screen for AI stocks focused on companies trading on either the NYSE or the Nasdaq with a minimum average daily trading volume of 1 million shares for the previous month and a positive total return over the last year. We screened for companies with share prices of at least $10 to avoid penny stocks. We then chose companies based on the highest average daily trading volume. To be sure these companies are tied to the AI technology space in a meaningful way, we included only those companies that have announced a major AI integration or new product launch in the last year or that provide hardware or other AI-related tools for other companies.
Notably, this is only one way to gauge whether a stock is focused on AI. Investors may wish to consider other metrics, including companies deriving a certain portion of revenues from AI-related business or those included in AI-focused indices or exchange-traded funds.
For investors looking to target AI stocks as a group in order to capitalize on the larger trend, AI-focused ETFs are a popular option. Still, it's worth noting whether companies included in one of these funds are developing AI technology, putting it into practice in their existing business models, or are likely to benefit from the large-scale movement toward AI reliance across sectors. Some investors may even wish to make use of AI in the investment process itself through robo-advisors or other trading platforms.
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As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the above stocks.
