Retail investors talked up five hot stocks during the week (Oct. 26 to Oct.
30) on X and Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, driven by retail hype, earnings, AI infrastructure momentum, and corporate news flow. Alphabet Inc.
com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Intel Inc.
(NASDAQ:INTC), Reddit Inc. (NYSE:RDDT), and Microsoft Corp.
(NASDAQ:MSFT), spanning the internet search and advertising, e-commerce and cloud computing, semiconductor manufacturing, social media and online communities, and enterprise software and cloud services sectors, reflected strong retail interest. Alphabet GOOGL was in focus this week after reporting third-quarter earnings on Oct.
99 estimate, even as Google Cloud revenue surged. The stock fell after the report as investors focused on heavy AI spending, with analysts warning that rising capital expenditures could pressure profitability.
Losses tied to Alphabet’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) investment were also a major factor in the earnings shortfall.
Wall Street remained divided: Guggenheim reiterated Buy with a $450 target, while Barclays cut its target to $405, RBC to $400, Morgan Stanley to $375, and Citizens downgraded the stock to Market Perform. — Retail investors were anxious following the earnings-led fall in GOOGL’s stock.
61, around $280 to $284 per share, as of the publication of this article. 89% over the last six months.
32% year-to-date. Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings showed that GOOGL had a weak price trend in the short, long and medium terms, with a moderate value score.
com AMZN was in focus this week after reporting third-quarter results on Oct. 97 expected, while shares fell despite accelerating AWS growth.
Amazon said AWS revenue grew more than 39% year over year to a $184 billion annualized run rate, and CEO Andy Jassy said AWS backlog reached $578 billion, up triple digits from a year earlier. Management also said it expects to spend meaningfully more on capital expenditures in 2027, projected AWS revenue growth above 40% in both 2027 and 2028, and plans to make its Trainium AI chips available outside AWS in late 2027.
Earlier in the week, Amazon was also in focus after Anthropic, in which it is a major investor, filed for a Nasdaq IPO under the ticker ANT. Some retail investors were debating AMZN’s future revenue streams via their investments in data centers.
20, trading around $225 to $244 per share, as of the publication of this article. 32% over the last six months.
62% year-to-date. According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, AMZN was maintaining a weak price trend over the long, short, and medium terms, with a good growth score.
Intel INTC was in focus this week after reporting third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29 that beat estimates, with EPS of 52 cents versus 37 cents expected, but shares sold off as management outlined a weaker PC market and heavier spending.
CFO David Zinsner said Intel expects the 2026 PC unit market to decline about 12%, with second-half units down more than 20%, and said he does not expect positive cash flow this year. Intel also kept 2026 gross capex at $20 billion and said 2027 spending should rise strongly, while CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the server CPU market could expand from about $40 billion to more than $200 billion over five years.
On Oct. 30, Bank of America and Roth Capital both downgraded Intel to Neutral, while New Street had upgraded the stock to Buy with a $125 target earlier in the week.
Bullish retail investors were worried after INTC’s stock decline. 35, trading around $67 to $93 per share, as of the publication of this article.
83% in the last six months. 51% YTD.
INTC maintains a weak price trend over the long, medium, and short terms, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings. Reddit RDDT was in focus this week after reporting third-quarter results on Oct.
0 million expected. Revenue rose 53% year over year, and trailing 12-month revenue crossed $3 billion, but softer guidance pressured the stock.
On the earnings call, CEO Steve Huffman said total sessions declined because of lower search-referral traffic and that Google appeared to be ranking some machine-translated Reddit content lower, though he said the traffic decline did not reflect underlying consumer demand. Management also said Reddit had "dramatically reduced" the time needed to train and deploy new models.
Retail investors were bullish on RDDT despite its massive decline. 89, trading around $99 to $130 per share, as of the publication of this article.
62% YTD. According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, RDDT was maintaining a weak price trend over the short, long, and medium terms, with a good growth score.
Microsoft MSFT was in focus this week after reporting fiscal first-quarter results on Oct. 72 expected, while Azure growth reached 48%.
7 billion, reinforcing the AI-led growth narrative. Microsoft also said roughly three-quarters of capex went toward short-lived assets such as CPUs and GPUs, highlighting the scale of AI infrastructure spending, and later moved toward a $25 billion bond sale.
Analysts responded with higher targets, including Wells Fargo at $750, Bernstein at $722 and Citigroup at $680. Retail investors holding MSFT were rejoicing after its recent earnings report.
15, trading around $525 to $531 per share, as of the publication of this article. 62% YTD.
According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, MSFT was maintaining a strong price trend over the short, long, and medium terms, with a good quality score. Retail focus comprised AI infrastructure momentum, earnings, and corporate news-driven narratives, with broader market action during the week.
