Nasdaq stocks were one of the biggest drivers of US equity performance in 2024, and they appear to be starting 2025 in a similar fashion. As of January 7th eleven stocks, in the Nasdaq 100 index, had risen by +8.0% or more year to date, many of these have made double digit percentage gains. The question of course is what are or will be the best Nasdaq listed stocks for 2025?
Will it be the same stocks that drove the market in 2024?
AI stocks like Nvidia, +208.0% over 12 months, and Palantir which rallied by+ 360.0%.
Or will Bitcoin focused Micro Strategy, which has put on more than 480.0% over the last 12 months, but which has started 2025 with something of wobble, take the crown?
Nvidia has been in the news headlines already, following its presentation at CES in Las Vegas. Where it announced new products and partnerships.
During his presentation Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that he thought the “Chat GPT” moment for Robotics was just around the corner, so could stocks linked to automation be this year’s big play.
Another industry that got a boost from the Nvidia CEO, was memory chips.
Jensen Huang announced a partnership with high end memory maker Micron Technology (Ticker MU) saying he would need lots and lots of memory.
Micron stock is up +21.0% over the last week , as of the time of writing.
Micron and Micro Strategy are the top performers in the Nasdaq 100 year to date. Whilst Palantir is down by more than – 6.0% as I type and Nvidia is down by some -4.50%
So it seems that the Nasdaq 100 will keep us guessing.
Its early days of course and short term price changes aren’t always the best guide to long term performance. Although it’s not the worst yardstick where growth stocks are concerned, and of course Nasdaq is chock full of growth names.
Picking the moment to buy stocks is also important.
For example if you had bought online security firm Crowdstrike (Ticker CRWD) in January last year, you would have made around 45.0% on your money.
Roughly the same return as if you had bought them after their software update caused one of the world’s biggest ever computer outages in July.
You had to be brave to buy Crowdstrike in July 2024, and possibly even braver to have held them over the last 12 months.
With all that in mind,how can we try and pick this year’s winners?
First of all let’s examine the Nasdaq 100 index, which actually contains 101 stocks that are drawn from 12 sectors. Though Information Technology is by far the biggest and most influential of these.
Source: Darren Sinden
The Nasdaq 100 trades on a forward PE ratio of 26.77 times earnings on the high side perhaps but well below the 5-year peak above 34.0 times earnings, seen in the summer of 2020.
Source: Macromicro
Could we find some potential winners by screening for stocks with a lower PE which are making gains?
Let’s have a look.
Here is a table that shows us exactly that.
Nasdaq 100 stocks with a PE ratio lower than the index’s and which have a positive 1-month performance.
| Symbol | Name | P/E fwd | Div Yield | Price/Sales | Price/Cash Flow | Book Value | Price/Book |
| GOOGL | Alphabet Cl A | 21.24 | 0.42% | 7.1966 | 27.47 | 25.66 | 7.38 |
| GOOG | Alphabet Cl C | 21.38 | 0.42% | 7.2415 | 27.64 | 25.66 | 7.43 |
| KLAC | K L A-Tencor Corp | 20.96 | 1.07% | 8.95632 | 21.84 | 26.61 | 23.92 |
| BKR | Baker Hughes Company | 16.16 | 2.02% | 1.5957 | 15.35 | 16.52 | 2.52 |
| FANG | Diamondback Energy | 10.47 | 2.16% | 3.3311 | 5.96 | 131.71 | 1.27 |
| AMAT | Applied Materials | 17.48 | 0.98% | 5.09181 | 17.77 | 23.05 | 7.11 |
| GEHC | GE Healthcare Technologies Inc | 16.77 | 0.15% | 1.9554 | 14.83 | 18.24 | 4.30 |
| LRCX | Lam Research Corp | 20.72 | 1.27% | 6.48375 | 21.74 | 6.58 | 11.00 |
| CEG | Constellation Energy Corp | 26.50 | 0.58% | 3.3816 | 18.73 | 41.39 | 5.86 |
| MU | Micron Technology | 13.97 | 0.53% | 3.98752 | 11.48 | 42 | 2.08 |
| PDD | Pdd Holdings Inc | 8.57 | 0.00% | 2.9133 | 15.09 | 28.84 | 3.36 |
| QCOM | Qualcomm Inc | 16.90 | 2.21% | 4.50051 | 15.18 | 23.59 | 6.51 |
| CDW | CDW Corp | 18.05 | 1.47% | 1.1783 | 14.50 | 17.63 | 9.65 |
Source : Darren Sinden
It’s interesting to note the presence of Alphabet in the list given that it is a member of the Magnificent 7 mega caps stocks and of the S&P 500 Communications Services sector which was 2024’s best performer up by +44.0% over the last 52 weeks.Alphabet’s performance in 2024 was in line with the sector index.
However,given that it has grown revenues by almost +125.0% and earnings by +143.70% over the last 5-years, and that the Cloud, AI and perhaps even Quantum Computing could be touchstones for equity investors in 2025, is there room for PE multiple and share price expansion here?
Chipping in
We have already mentioned Micron, however, there are two other chip stocks in the list above.
Applied Materials (Ticker AMAT) and Qualcomm (Ticker QCOM).
Which have each, substantially underperformed both the Semiconductor sector ETF (Ticker SMH), and the Nasdaq 100, over the last 12 months, as we can see in the chart below.
There is plenty of room for improvement in 2025 for both stocks, given the right catalysts.
What catches my eye
However, the stock that catches my eye the most in this list is GE Healthcare Tech (Ticker GEHC) which was formed through the break up of General Electric.
The Healthcare sector had a poor 2024, and over the last 12 months the sector index has added just +0.41%, making it the second worst performer among the 11 S&P 500 sectors.
Healthcare investing is full of uncertainty ahead of the Trump Presidency and Robert F Kennedy who is seen as a cost cutter, becoming US Health Secretary in the new administration.
However, GE Healthcare looks like it would like to rally away from its recent lows. And its share price has moved above the downtrend line, drawn from the late September highs, and has tested above its 50 day moving average to boot.
GE Healthcare which makes medical imaging and patient-monitoring products, is up more than +6.00% year to date, it has just been upgraded at US broker Jefferies, who raised their price target to $103.00, and it will report earnings on the 13th of February.
Going Viral?
Another Healthcare related Nasdaq stock that could be a winner in 2024 is Moderna (Ticker MRNA).
Readers may recall that we featured the vaccine maker in the article US Stocks Trading at Black Friday Discounts back in November, saying then that:
“Moderna is one of a handful of companies that are developing vaccines against HN51 or Bird Flu, which has been spreading throughout livestock populations in the US for a number of years.
However, more recently the virus has transitioned into Humans, with some 55 cases now confirmed in the US, 29 of those in California.
It’s early days of course but if HN51 becomes more of a threat, could Moderna come back into demand?
The stock currently trades at $43.90 but I note that it traded above $497.00 in 2021”
Sadly there has now been a human fatality in the US, that was caused by Bird Flu.
Moderna traded as high as $48.92 on that news, closing up by +11.65% and it looks set for further gains.
As I type the stock trading another +5.00% higher in the US pre market.
The next few weeks could be telling
We will likely get a better picture of what the best Nasdaq stocks will be in 2025, once Q4 2024 earnings season is underway next week and Donald Trump has been installed in the White House on Jan 20th
Sentiment and momentum (hyperbole?) will no doubt play their part this year. However, let’s not forget that Nvidia and Palantir saw their stock prices rise on a rapidly improving business outlook and revenue increases, which reminds us that even in the world of technology and growth investing fundamentals can still count for something.
With over 35 years of finance experience, Darren is a highly respected and knowledgeable industry expert. With an extensive career covering trading, sales, analytics and research, he has a vast knowledge covering every aspect of the financial markets.
During his career, Darren has acted for and advised major hedge funds and investment banks such as GLG, Thames River, Ruby Capital and CQS, Dresdner Kleinwort and HSBC.
In addition to the financial analysis and commentary he provides as an editor at GoodMoneyGuide.com, his work has been featured in publications including Fool.co.uk.
As well as extensive experience of writing financial commentary, he previously worked as a Market Research & Client Relationships Manager at Admiral Markets UK Ltd, before providing expert insights as a market analyst at Pepperstone.
Darren is an expert in areas like currency, CFDs, equities and derivatives and has authored over 260 guides on GoodMoneyGuide.com.
He has an aptitude for explaining trading concepts in a way that newcomers can understand, such as this guide to day trading Forex at Pepperstone.com
Darren has done interviews and analysis for companies like Queso, including an interview on technical trading levels.
A well known authority in the industry, he has provided interviews on Bloomberg (UK), CNBC (UK) Reuters (UK), Tiptv (UK), BNN (Canada) and Asharq Bloomberg Arabia.
You can contact Darren at darrensinden@goodmoneyguide.com
