So here’s a fun holiday experiment: Business Insider asked 10 professional investors what single stock they’d gift someone this Christmas. You know, because nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like unsolicited investment advice from your financially savvy relatives.
The results? Well, let’s just say Google’s parent company Alphabet basically became the finance world’s equivalent of that one gift everyone keeps giving because it’s reliable, useful, and nobody’s ever mad about getting it.
The Alphabet Fan Club
Three different pros picked Alphabet (GOOGL), which is up a very nice 64% this year. Ross Gerber from Gerber Kawasaki called it his top pick because of Google’s “vast resources” and investments in other tech companies. Translation: they’ve got their fingers in every pie, and most of those pies are making money.
Daniel Newman from Futurum Group likes Google because it gives you “significant upside with deep moats” but without “massive downside risk.” In non-finance speak: it’s the investing equivalent of ordering chicken at a new restaurant – probably going to be good, definitely won’t be terrible.
Michael Ashley Schulman got poetic, calling Alphabet “part megacorp, part mad scientist, and somehow, still your homepage.” Honestly, that’s the most accurate description of Google I’ve ever heard.
The Usual Suspects
Nvidia (NVDA) made the list too, because of course it did. Louis Navellier called it “a monopoly and a safe hold till at least the end of the decade.” When you’re basically the only game in town for AI chips, that’s not a bad position to be in.
Amazon (AMZN) got a shout-out for being “cheaper than Walmart on a valuation basis” – which is wild when you think about it. Greg Halter thinks Amazon’s got room to grow with AI and robots in warehouses. Because apparently, the future is robots doing our shopping for us.
The Interesting Wild Cards
Some picks were more creative. Darius Dale went with a gold ETF (GLDM), calling gold “the gift that is likely to keep on giving.” Fair enough – gold has been humanity’s favorite shiny thing for thousands of years.
Eric Clark picked Warby Parker (WRBY) because “as we spend more time on devices, we pull forward the need to get glasses.” Basically, our screen addiction is good for the eyewear business. That’s… depressingly logical.
The most under-the-radar pick was Legence (LGN), a tech stock focused on specialized plumbing for data centers. Because someone’s got to handle all the pipes that keep our internet running, and apparently, that someone is making good money doing it.
The Bottom Line
What’s interesting is how these picks reflect where smart money thinks the world is heading: AI dominance (Nvidia), tech diversification (Alphabet), e-commerce evolution (Amazon), and the infrastructure that makes it all possible (Legence).
Of course, remember that even professional investors are just making educated guesses. But if you’re looking for some holiday inspiration for your portfolio, at least now you know what the pros are thinking. Just maybe don’t actually give stocks as Christmas gifts – most people prefer gift cards.