Retail investors talked up five hot stocks during the week (Sept. 14 to 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. The stock rebounded mid-week after Altera, in which Intel holds a 49% stake, confidentially filed for a U.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.
- The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $28.73 to $142.35, trading around $107 to $112 per share, as of the publication of this article. It advanced by 336.95% over the last year and 146.94% over the last six months. The stock was up 194.85% 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.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $240.21 to $344.57, trading around $336 to $338 per share, as of the publication of this article. It advanced by 41.01% over the year and rose 32.56% in the last six months. The stock was up 23.96% 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.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $164.27 to $236.54, trading around $218 to $220 per share, as of the publication of this article. It rose by 28.80% over the year and 20.56% in the last six months. The stock was down 15.61% 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.
Oracle
- Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison canceled a planned 10b5-1 sale of up to 50 million shares of roughly $7.5 billion that had been disclosed shortly before, with no shares sold and no new sale plans announced. The company also disclosed higher restructuring costs, an extra ~$700 million, pushing the fiscal 2026 total near $2.8 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.
- The stock had a 52-week range of $114.50 to $329.50, trading around $149 to $151 per share, as of the publication of this article. It dropped by 50.04% over the year, fell 2.65% over the last six months, and is lower by 22.74% 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. Market strategists like Shay Boloor identified $150 per share as a target entry level for NBIS, about 31.19% 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.
- The stock has traded in the 52-week range of $73.52 to $299.86, trading around $216 to $218 per share, as of the publication of this article. It rose by 131.71% over the year, rose 87.39% over the last six months, and is up 160.43% 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.
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