Retail investors talked up five hot stocks this week (Nov. 17-21) on X and Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, driven by earnings, retail hype, AI buzz, and corporate news flow.
The stocks, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR), Strategy Inc. (NYSE:MSTR), Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), semiconductor, AI, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and retail reflected diverse investor interests.
Nvidia
- Nvidia dominated headlines with its fiscal third-quarter earnings on Nov. 19, reporting record $57 billion revenue driven by $51.2B in data center sales alongside fourth-quarter guidance of $65 billion. Other highlights included over 80 new NVDA-powered supercomputing systems announced at SC25, robotics advancements like the OpenMind BrainPack with Jetson Thor and Isaac GR00T-Dreams for synthetic data, and a viral photo of Jensen Huang with Donald Trump and Elon Musk signaling U.S. AI leadership.
- Some retail investors question Huang’s meeting with political and business leaders.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $86.63 to $212.19, trading around $180 to $183 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was up 30.61% year-to-date and 23.16% over the year.
- While this stock had a poor value ranking, Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings showed that it had a stronger price trend in the medium and long terms but a weak trend in the short term. Additional performance details are available here.
Palantir Technologies
- PLTR grappled with AI bubble fears, amplified by Michael Burry‘s bearish put positions and Stanley Druckenmiller‘s full exit from his stake, while CEO Alex Karp‘s Thursday filing to sell 585,000 shares worth $96 million at $164/share triggered fresh sell-off jitters and insider dumping accusations. Also on Monday, it signed a multi-year AI partnership with FTAI Aviation for aviation ops optimization.
- A retail investor described PLTR insider selling as “rats fleeing a sinking ship.”
- The stock had a 52-week range of $60.90 to $207.52, trading around $155 to $157 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was up 107.14% year-to-date and 153.82% over the year.
- Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings showed that the stock had a stronger price trend in the long term but a weak trend in the short and medium terms, with a solid growth ranking. Additional performance details are available here.
See Also: SoFi Tech, Opendoor, Rivian— Investors Couldn’t Stop Talking About These And More Stocks This Week
Strategy
- MSTR extended its sharp decline amid Bitcoin‘s (CRYPTO: BTC) correction from peaks. Debt refinancing fears mounted, followed by insider sales by EVP Wei-Ming Shao. On Nov. 17, it purchased 8,178 BTC for $835.6 million, boosting holdings to 649,870 BTC.
- Investors mocked MSTR and said that it will again rebrand itself from Strategy to “Tragedy” after a rough week.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $171.48 to $542.99, trading around $177 to $179 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was down 40.96% YTD and 55.41% over the year.
- According to Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, it was maintaining a weaker price trend over short, medium, and long terms, with a poor value ranking. Additional performance details are available here.
Walmart
- WMT dominated retail headlines with its fiscal third-quarter earnings on Nov. 20, reporting $179.5 billion in revenue, a 27% e-commerce surge, and 53% advertising jump, alongside non-GAAP EPS of $0.62; the company raised FY26 net sales guidance to 4.8-5.1% signaling holiday confidence amid price-sensitive shoppers. Other key moves included announcing a Dec. 9 transfer of its NYSE listing to Nasdaq (retaining “WMT” ticker) in a historic exchange shift.
- Investors reiterated confidence in WMT and how it caters to the common man’s daily needs.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $79.81 to $109.58, trading around $106 to $108 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was up 19.01% year-to-date and 21.18% over the year.
- The stock had a stronger price trend in the short, medium, and long terms, with a solid quality ranking, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings. Other performance details are available here.
Alphabet
- Alphabet overtook Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) as the world’s third-most valuable company amid AI momentum, fueled by the Nov. 18 launch of Gemini 3—Google’s most advanced model with superior reasoning, multimodal capabilities, and agentic tools for app-building and planning. This was followed by the Nov. 20 rollout of Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) for studio-quality image generation, editing, and factual diagrams with precise text rendering and world knowledge integration. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s (NYSE:BRK) (NYSE:BRK) disclosure of a $4.9 billion stake from the third quarter marked a rare Buffett tech bet, boosting sentiment.
- Investors reiterated confidence in GOOG to become the next $5 trillion firm after NVDA.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $142.66 to $306.89, trading around $289 to $291 per share, as of the publication of this article. It was up 52.12% year-to-date but 71.34% higher over the year.
- It maintains a stronger price trend over the short, medium, and long terms, with a strong quality score, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings. Additional performance details are available here.
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.
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