While Wall Street’s AI darling drew the biggest retail inflows in August, Palantir, Opendoor, and Snowflake rivaled its buzz.
August turned out to be an atypically strong month this year, with the major averages all ending in the green, bolstered by rate cut hopes and a buoyant second-quarter reporting season. The rally witnessed in the market this year has been fueled by retail investors, and this category of buyers is reportedly doubling up on specific names heading into September.
A JPMorgan report said Nvidia led the list of top 10 single stocks with the largest weekly retail order imbalance in the final trading week of August, CNBC reported.
Nvidia Corp: (NVDA)
Weekly Gains: -2.14%
7-day Message Volume Change(%): -84.77%
According to JPMorgan, Nvidia had the largest weekly retail order imbalance ($867 million in net inflows) in the past week. The surge in orders occurred as the Jensen Huang-led company’s stock fell despite reporting a quarterly beat and issuing positive guidance in the past week.
Retail buying surged to a frenzied pace by mid-session after the earnings report, increasing four times the previous day’s volume.
Reflecting the interest in the stock, Nvidia was among the most actively traded stocks in the after-hours sessions of all five sessions last week.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward Nvidia stock stayed ‘extremely bullish’ (86/100) as of late Tuesday, and the message volume on the stream was also ‘extremely high.’
Nvidia’s stock has gained about 30% this year.
Palantir Technologies, Inc. (PLTR)
Weekly Gains: -1.28%
7-day Message Volume Change(%): +28%
Shares of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analytics company Palantir saw net retail buying of over $300 million last week. The Alex Karp-led company’s stock has pulled back after hitting an all-time intraday high of $190 on Aug. 12 as investors reacted to valuation concerns raised by short-sellers and analysts.
Palantir stock elicited ‘bearish’ sentiment (26/100) from among retail users of Stocktwits, and the message volume was at ‘low’ levels.
The stock has gained 107% year-to-date.
Opendoor Technologies, Inc. (OPEN)
Weekly Gains: -1.28%
7-day Message Volume Change(%): +28%
Opendoor stock has been on a tear since mid-July, although it traded well off its early 2021 peak of over $39. The stock ended Friday’s session down 0.45% at $4.43, and it is still up nearly 180% for the year-to-date (YTD) period.
The Opendoor rally has been characterized as a meme run, and the retail interest in the stock has prompted well-known personalities to take a more positive view of the stock. The retail influence on the stock was so significant that its CEO, Carrie Wheeler, was forced to step down in mid-August, leaving the reins to technology chief Srisha Radhakrishna.
San Francisco-based Opendoor, founded in 2014, is an online platform that facilitates the buying and selling of residential real estate.
Sentiment toward the Opendoor stock has tempered to ‘neutral’ (50/100) by late Monday from ‘bullish’ a day ago. The message volume on the stream has also dropped to ‘normal’ levels.
Other stocks popular with retailers, going by the net order inflows, are AI chip maker and Nvidia’s peer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), conversational AI company SoundHound AI, Inc. (SOUN), retail giant Walmart, Inc. (WMT), AI data center operator CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV), and cloud-based data platform provider Snowflake, Inc. (SNOW), which reported stellar quarterly results last week.
That said, JPMorgan noted that, beyond Nvidia, the pace of retail buying in AI stocks has slowed in the past few months compared to the first half of the year. Fears concerning a slowdown in the AI revolution have dampened sentiment toward companies with exposure to AI technology in recent weeks, although the quarterly results and outlook from these companies have reassured investors about the continuation of momentum.
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