I was looking through 2023, 2024 for big winners around AI theme to back test a little. Here is what I observe :
– 2023: Nvidia – 233%, Vertiv – 246%, SMCI – 242%, Meta – 194%
– 2024: Palantir – 340%, Vistra Corp – 261%, Nvidia – 171%, Applovin – 268%, Meta 70%, SMCI – 66%(***copied from earlier post)
– 2025: Sandisk- 340%, Western Digital – 280%, Seagate – 222%, Micron – 250%, Lumentum – 300%, Bloom energy – 300%
- Looking hindsight since the ChatGPT moment market initially bid up Nvidia, Meta, MSFT as AI plays
- AI applications truly showed in the recommender engines Meta (7x) and Applovin (30x) but still super early
- There were random 20-30x recovery plays since 2020 market bottom from very cheap valuations like Dave, Applovin, Carvana, Sezzle
Totally missed the AI bull market leading sector which was semiconductor and AI Infrastructure which includes Neoclouds, Power Infra, DC cooling.
I am tracking AI IPOs that may hit the market which have the potential to go up 10-20 times.
This was a spin-off Sandisk:). Looking at it late November thought it was topping out, went on to make another 5x. These are very hard stocks to buy after going up 3-4x. Western Digital, Seagate and Micron were these 10-20x stocks
Behaviour of AI Bull market stocks. They move the fastest and fall viciously during every market fall as they will most hot stocks traders love playing with leverage.
Was discussing about HDD and Flash needs for AI with a friend in 2024. We knew Flash will be preferred due the fast retrieval. Was studying Sandisk in anticipation of spin-off but didn’t want to buy a loss making company without clear line of sight to demand. Would have been super rich if I could clear Sandisk interview in June 2025.
Since Mid-2024 super aware of the energy shortage and was looking for a potential play. I bought and sold Fluence but could never build conviction with the management changes and order book driven growth. I did look at Bloom energy in 2023 part of themes to find companies back by TJ Rogers looked like a science experiment I couldn’t understand and never revisited the company.
Thought about SK Hynix and Micron since the beginning of 2025 due to HBM shortage never pulled the plug.
Market has been sifting through the bottlenecks and rewarding the players. GPU then Memory then CPO then CPUs more recently. CPO supply chain was exploding since the beginning of the year. Keeping up with AI trade has become a very fast month to month activity. Billions of dollars at stake so minute tracking of shipment data from Hedge funds across the spectrum. It has been a super tough game.
Swing and a miss. Amazon Sep Calls were forced out by Iran war. Astera Jan 2027 calls also got out after parabolic moves.
Never expected a basic infra rent out business to turn out to be such a block buster. Almost a 4x from IPO price. This confirms market is hungry for AI theme and I am on the look out for AI companies with robust business model along with growth to ride the wave.
What I got wrong is in an Infra led bull market expecting to find recurring revenue businesses is a mirage. There are differences between an Infrastructure Vs Consumption Vs Productivity driven bull market
Below are some companies to track as I am researching about future companies. Right now 2 categories where usage seem to hit production phase are 1. Code Gen 2. Sales enablement
It was obvious to everyone even in early 2025 that Coding is going to be breakout category. After O reasoning model from OpenAI in Dec 2024 the next big inflection was Anthropic’s Opus in Dec 2025
Uday Reddy 