Retail investors talked up five hot stocks this week (Feb. 2 to Feb. 6) on X and Reddit's r/WallStreetBets, driven by retail hype, earnings, AI buzz, and corporate news flow.
Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), spanning cryptocurrency, e-commerce, AI, cloud, software, data center, and semiconductors, reflected diverse investor interests.
Strategy
- MSTR was in focus this week with the company’s aggressive Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) strategy amid a sharp crypto downturn. Early in the week, it announced a purchase of 855 BTC for ~$75.3 million at an average price of $87,974, boosting its holdings toward 713,502 BTC. However, as Bitcoin plunged this week. This was followed by the fourth quarter earnings release, with a massive $12.4 billion net loss (or ~$42.93 per share), driven by mark-to-market Bitcoin declines, far worse than expectations and contributing to heavy stock selling.
- Most retail investors were mocking MSTR’s decline after the BTC sell-off and it earnings.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $104.16 to $457.22, trading around $105 to $107 per share, as of the publication of this article. It fell 67.13% over the year and declined by 72.10% over the last six months.
- MSTR had a weaker price trend in the short, medium, and long terms, with a poor value ranking, as per Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings.
Amazon.com
- AMZN’s fourth quarter 2025 earnings release saw strong revenue of $213.4 billion driven by solid holiday sales, robust AWS growth, and net income of $21.2 billion. However, it slightly missed EPS estimates at $1.95, and the big shocker was guidance for ~$200 billion in 2026 capital expenditures—up over 50% from 2025 levels—to fuel aggressive AI infrastructure, chips, robotics, and satellite investments, far above analyst consensus of ~$146–149 billion. This sparked investor concerns over profitability pressures and heavy spending in a cooling tech environment.
- Some retail investors believed that AMZN was available at a bargain as it was trading near $200 per share.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $161.43 to $258.60, trading around $197 to $200 per share, as of the publication of this article. It declined by 6.76% over the year and rose just 0.17% in the last six months.
- AMZN had a weaker price trend in the short, medium, and long term, with a solid quality ranking as per Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings.
Palantir Technologies
- PLTR reported a blockbuster fourth-quarter 2025 earnings release on Feb. 2. The company delivered a strong beat with revenue of $1.41 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.25. It was fueled by explosive U.S. commercial growth and robust government/defense demand. Palantir issued highly bullish guidance, forecasting FY 2026 revenue of $7.182–7.198 billion and first-quarter 2026 sales of ~$1.53–1.536 billion, alongside expectations for U.S. commercial revenue growth of at least 115%.
- Some retail investors were curious to know how Michael Burry‘s PLTR shorts were performing after its 22.55% year-to-date slide.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $66.12 to $207.52, trading around $126 to $130 per share, as of the publication of this article. It returned 16.83% over the year and declined 27.59% in the last six months.
- Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings showed that PLTR had a weaker price trend in the short, medium, and long terms, with a solid growth score.
Alphabet
- GOOG/GOOGL’s fourth-quarter earnings dominated its news flow. It reported strong beats with revenue of $113.8 billion driven by robust Google Services, YouTube ads/subscriptions surpassing $60 billion annually, and explosive Google Cloud growth of 48% to $17.7 billion. Net income rose 30% to $34.5 billion, with EPS at $2.82, and full-year 2025 revenue topped $400 billion for the first time. CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted Gemini 3 momentum, over 750 million monthly active users for the Gemini App, and AI driving Search expansion. However, the standout (and controversial) detail was guidance for 2026 capital expenditures of $175–$185 billion—roughly double 2025’s ~$91 billion and far above analyst consensus of ~$115–$120 billion—to aggressively expand AI compute capacity, data centers, and infrastructure amid intense competition.
- Some retail investors thought owning Alphabet shares was safe because of its massive revenue.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $142.66 to $350.15, trading around $322 to $325 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was up by 71.40% over the year and 68.26% over the last six months.
- GOOG maintains a stronger price trend over the short, medium, and long term, with a solid quality score, as per Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings.
Advanced Micro Devices
- AMD also centered on its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings release. It reported record revenue of $10.3 billion, driven by strong data center growth. CEO Lisa Su highlighted 2026 as a major “inflection year” with accelerating AI/CPU demand, data center growth projected over 60% annually in the coming years, and MI450 AI accelerators on track for the second half of 2026 volume shipments. However, first quarter guidance of ~$9.8 billion disappointed investors—showing a ~5% sequential decline due to seasonality in non-data-center segments and a “China cliff” from tighter U.S. export rules—despite being above consensus and implying 32% YoY growth.
- Retail investors were confused as to why chipmakers like AMD were down, questioning the AI spending routed toward these semiconductor manufacturers.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $76.48 to $267.08, trading around $187 to $190 per share, as of the publication of this article. It gained by 74.75% over the year and 18.01% over the last six months.
- According to Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings, AMD was maintaining a weaker price trend over short and medium terms but a strong trend in the long term, with a poor value ranking.
Retail focus blended meme-driven narrative with earnings outlook and corporate news flow, as the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq witnessed negative market action during the week.
Image Via Shutterstock
Comments