Retail investors talked up five hot stocks during the week (Sept. 18) on X and Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, driven by retail hype, earnings, AI infrastructure momentum, and corporate news flow.
Intel Corp. (NYSE:INTC), Apple Inc.
(NASDAQ:AAPL), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Nebius Group NV (NASDAQ:NBIS), and Oracle Corp.
(NYSE:ORCL), spanning the semiconductor, consumer electronics, AI hardware, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise software sectors, reflected strong retail interest. Intel Intel shares fell roughly on Monday this week amid a broader semiconductor selloff triggered by AI industry leaders calling for slower frontier-model development over safety concerns and efficiency gains from models like DeepSeek that could reduce hardware demand.
S. IPO.
Additionally, Reuters reported on Sept. 16 that SK Hynix Inc.
(NASDAQ:SKHY) was in exploratory talks to potentially manufacture memory chips at Intel’s facilities. Many retail investors were bullish on INTC, expecting a steady upside.
35, trading around $107 to $112 per share, as of the publication of this article. 94% over the last six months.
85% year-to-date. According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, INTC was maintaining a strong price trend over the short, medium and long terms.
Apple Apple’s major stories this week centered on the ongoing rollout and reception of products unveiled under new CEO John Ternus on Sept. 9: the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, along with iPhone Duo, new Apple Watch models, and AirPods 5, with pre-orders underway and availability beginning Sept.
18. On Sept.
14, iOS 27 and the Siri AI beta with enhanced conversational capabilities powered in part by partnerships with Google and OpenAI became available. Analysts tracked mixed-to-improving early demand signals for the Pro models—including shorter ship times and strong carrier trade-in promotions up to $1,200.
Following its new launches, some retail traders were highly bullish on the AAPL stock. 57, trading around $336 to $338 per share, as of the publication of this article.
56% in the last six months. 96% YTD.
Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings showed that AAPL had a strong price trend in the short, long, and medium terms, with a moderate growth score. Nvidia NVIDIA shares fell on Monday this week amid a broader semiconductor selloff triggered by AI leaders, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei calling for a slowdown in frontier model development over safety risks, alongside reports that NVIDIA and others were limiting use of certain third-party models due to data-privacy concerns.
The company also expanded its CUDA-Q quantum platform that day and faced speculation of a potential up-to-$10 billion anchor investment in Anthropic’s IPO. Later in the week, CEO Jensen Huang appeared at Salesforce’s Dreamforce, NVIDIA joined an AI energy-management alliance with Google and Emerald AI, and preliminary MLPerf results highlighted strong performance for its next-gen Vera Rubin platform.
Retail investors were anxious about NVDA’s moment on Reddit. 54, trading around $218 to $220 per share, as of the publication of this article.
56% in the last six months. 61% YTD.
NVDA maintains a strong price trend over the long, medium, and short terms, with a good quality score, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings. 5 billion that had been disclosed shortly before, with no shares sold and no new sale plans announced.
8 billion, and initiated a fresh round of layoffs as part of ongoing cost-cutting while investing heavily in AI infrastructure. Some ORCL investors were hoping for continued stock momentum.
50, trading around $149 to $151 per share, as of the publication of this article. 74% YTD.
According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, ORCL was maintaining a strong price trend over the short term and a strong trend in the long and medium terms, with a good growth score. Nebius Group NBIS announced it would raise on-demand AI compute prices effective Oct.
1, increasing rates for Nvidia GPUs by roughly 17–21% along with AMD EPYC CPU rates by about 25% and memory pricing by 41%, citing persistently strong demand. 19% lower than the current level, citing its conversion of power capacity into cloud revenue.
"If it goes below 150 that is my pounding the table level," Boloor stated. He expects the stock to trade at a commodity multiple until achieving EBIT profitability or operating profit by early 2028.
Retail investors were highly bullish on NBIS stock. 86, trading around $216 to $218 per share, as of the publication of this article.
43% YTD. According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, NBIS was maintaining a strong price trend over the long, short, and medium terms, with a poor value score.
Retail focus comprised AI infrastructure momentum, earnings, and corporate news-driven narratives, with broader market action during the week.
