I’ve Analyzed 1,000+ Stocks. Here Are My AI Winners (And Losers)

The world's top-performing stock market has just entered a bear market, and AI stocks are at the center of it. So did the bubble just burst, or is it a great time to buy before the market rips higher? I'm James Helliwell, I'm a former professional trader, and today I'm ranking the most important AI stocks in the world from S-tier right down to F-tier to show you whether any of these names are bargains now, or more likely, best avoided. And I'll be using the very same model I used to pick stocks with as a pro that I've also applied to grow my own portfolio to over £2 million. Now, we should probably start with the two names that make up almost half of the Korean stock market, the KOSPI: SK Hynix, which at one point was up over 800-odd percent, and Samsung, who you've no doubt heard of. So let's begin with Hynix. Hynix ranks in the middle of the pack, 446. This essentially gives you the profile of the company's fundamentals. So you've got the overall impression and then compared to other companies in the same industry. And what it shows you is the fair value. So where the stock should theoretically be trading based on its median or average price to free cash flow multiple. Don't worry too much about that if this is a new concept, but in essence, this is how I and other professionals look to determine what a stock is worth. So that's the dotted green line that you can see here. It's trading at twice as much as the historical rating. So it is grossly overvalued. And you'll see that from the price chart here. If we take a closer look, this is absolutely insane, guys. I think it would otherwise be a B. I'm putting it in C tier. Definitely wouldn't own it. Not at these levels. Now this is the next biggest weight in the COSPI. I'm already thinking it would probably be a similar story to Hynix. So is it a B or a C? I doubt that it's an A, but let's go ahead and take a look at the rating within the screener. So keep in mind that Hynix was 446th. This is considerably lower, 640 out of 750 roughly. So it's a below-par company that's trading at an incredible premium. It's trading 64% richer than theoretically it should be trading. That's down with Hynix. Could it even be an F-tier company? Well, we'll consider the alternatives as we go along. And this is where we now begin to look globally away from South Korea. Now, with Micron, it's a super popular name if you go on the forums, but I think it's overhyped. So this is even lower than Samsung, down in 686th place. Whilst it's a below average stock, the valuation actually seems reasonable. It seems in line despite this insane move. So with this one, I would say that Micron otherwise would be starting from sort of this C or D position. We haven't got D on here, so maybe F. But I'm actually going— I'm tempted perhaps to upgrade it here to B. So what I'm, what I'm maybe going to do is, hmm, okay, it's inferior to Samsung and Hynix in terms of its rating, but it's the first one that we've seen not trading at a premium or a crazy multiple. I mean, there's no point buying a bad company at a fair price. It doesn't make sense, but, uh, I'm going to put it in C. And I don't know, would you prefer to buy a better company at a worse price or a worse company at a slightly better price? I don't know. They're all in C tier so far. So let's try and get some variety in this. And to do so, we're going to move into another segment of the value chain. And just before we do, it would really help me as a small creator to continue making these videos if you just give things a like down below and let me know if you agree with these or if you see something different as well. It's always good to hear what you are saying. We're gonna look at the foundries, Taiwan Semiconductor and ASML. A lot of people would probably regard this as an S-tier company, and I'm gonna show you the reasons why I don't think it is. Now, this footprint is much more attractive than what we've seen so far, so it trades at a premium for a reason. It's the world's biggest manufacturer of chips. You can see that there were periods historically when it traded below fair value. So that's when the price line is below the green dotted line. So as recently as 2023, and in fact a little dip in 2025 last year. Now, unlike other models, if I just pull up Fiscal AI, for example, this is still on Hynix, but it, the same thing applies. The problem is that you have lookahead bias here because this is based on the midpoint of the range that it has traded in historically. To make it a bit clearer, let me pull TSMC. So in my model, this is a rolling 10-year average, unlike this one, which is static and therefore makes things appear more obvious with hindsight than they were at the time. And according to this rule, right now it's trading at a near 50% premium. So we might expect it to be about $285 per share based on the cash flow that it's currently generating., but it's up at over 420. I can't put it up in S tier. It's going to be A tier. So let's now look at ASML. This for me is an S tier stock. And let me show you the reason why. We don't have to scroll very far down the list to see that it ranks in 4th place as recently as, call it the 1st of January 2025, it was in fact slightly undervalued. And you can see that the downside was limited to 15%. The upside when the stock was rerated of nearly 200%. And again, look at this between July 2020 and call it July 2022, it was similarly undervalued. And this is when the the big funds, and I was still running money back then, were accumulating this stock. The buy zone was approximately from sort of 360 to 830. So we'll take the midpoint at say 550. That would've been our average entry, give or take. It's done like 200 or 300% since. So given the premium that it's trading at right now, 60%, I would be a bit hypocritical to leave it up in S tier. It is so close otherwise, but for the valuation, it has just had another really good set of results, but it's not sufficient to bring that multiple down. So we've got a couple of A tiers, 3 C tiers, but what about AMD? So this is getting back to another one of the big popular AI 11 trades, but this is a stock in fact that's been around forever. It's even older than I am. So let's see where AMD ranks. 318th, so slightly above average, kind of middle of the pack. These guys and the next couple of companies I'm gonna show you, they would be categorized as within sort of custom silicon, which isn't something that you go to Turkey or I don't know where the girls go. We're talking about a different kind of custom silicon here, chips. Bad jokes aside, AMD is sort of middle, mid-tier. So this would perhaps begin as, I don't know, C or possibly B, but for the fact that on here it's not really overvalued. So maybe this is another example of why stocks trade at a certain multiple, a premium for a reason. And if they don't command a premium, there's often a reason for that as well. So it could be that In the case of AMD, a stock that went sideways for decades, it could be that its prospects are just not as attractive. We should note though that it was undervalued from January 2015 all the way, in fact, until a couple of months ago. So this was a cheap stock and a great way, a sensible play, dare I say, within the AI theme up until basically last month or a couple of months ago. Let's take a look at this here a little bit more closely. If we stick it on weekly. From February 2025, that's when the model would have been saying, hey, this looks undervalued, through until May. I guess we could say after the big rally, the stock was cheap throughout this. Remember, guys, compare this to the other things we've seen so far, which were already overvalued or seldom fair value during this period. That actually was a great trade and a sensible one from a fundamental perspective. So up 300% whilst it remained cheap. Just because something has gone up or has gone up a lot, it doesn't mean that it's expensive. It's relative to the fundamentals, to the valuation, which makes sense when you say it as bluntly as that. It almost sounds stupid, but human beings, and I know this from firsthand experience, when there's money at risk and there's volatility and all the rest and headlines and other people's opinions and everything else that you got to try and shut out. And then especially when it's your money or your career also at stake and you're doing all this stuff, it can be so hard to hold on or to bring yourself to buy in the first place when you're looking at a downtrend like that. But this again is where understanding the fundamental picture is what makes it so much easier. Just as a reminder, guys, there's a link in the description below if you want to get a 7-day free trial of this tool plus all of the others that I show in my videos. Doesn't cost you a thing. You can just cancel before it automatically renews and you won't be charged. So I'm actually going to upgrade this. It was middle of the pack in terms of rating, but the valuation I think is fair. So I'm going to actually put that in B tier. It's better than these guys. You could say given the valuation is better than these two.. But this ranks 4th and this ranks 88th, I think from memory. They're still intrinsically better than AMD, but for the valuation, which brings them down, they would be S tiers otherwise. So let's look at another one in here. Now this is going to be, I think, a bit of a surprising one for a lot of you because I know you've probably heard of Broadcom. Most people like it. I think many would consider it to be A tier. If you read Reddit, they'd probably have it as a bloody S tier company. But I think I'm about to burst some bubbles with this. It ranks in 125th place. So the rating, the score isn't that bad. So it probably does look like an A tier, maybe a B tier stock. I'd say possibly A. However, when we scroll down, it is at a 200% premium. We haven't seen anything like this. The last time the stock was cheap was 2023. What was happening back then politically in the UK? God knows. Who was the Prime Minister back then? Was it Margaret Thatcher? I'm kidding, it wasn't that long ago. I don't know, what was her name? We have never had it so good. Not Liz Truss. This is so awkward. What was her name? It's been to serve the country I love. We'll get back to that in a minute. I'm one of my episodes. Let's pull up a Vargo Broadcom. And you can see here the last time it was cheap, mid-2023, it was down at $60 and it's over $400. Analysts, if they were looking at this favorably, would say, well, it's seeing a rerating. But to me, this is just madness. However, look at when it was cheap for a prolonged period before that, through 2017 or late '17, let's call it through 2018, even through the pandemic, that was a cheap stock. So it went from $25 to $55 in a couple of years. So it has been cheap for a long time and now it's been expensive for a long time. So I'm actually going to go on a limb here and say this is uninvestable at the current valuation. It's 3 times as expensive as it should be. It's otherwise perhaps an A tier or B tier if you've been a bit critical, an A tier stock, but it is uninvestable up here. It should be worth about $120, $130 and it's trading at $400. You'd be mad to buy it. Just imagine if you were buying a house And they were asking £400,000 when it, it was valued at like 120 grand. Mental. Anyway, that's where we are with, the custom silicon. We've got one more company within this, and again, I think this could be a controversial one. I had Intel down here, F, like absolute dog crap. However, It's just had an earnings surprise that I think could buck the trend. Let me show you where I was starting from. You can see it's right down at the bottom of this list, 750th. It doesn't even have one full score, tiny footprint, absolute dog shit. I believe that's the technical term. And yet it still trades at a 14% premium. It's a small one, but it's still at a premium. So there was no value in this. However, if we pull up the earnings surprise, it actually had a big beat on both revenue and earnings just last night. So this is going to be priced in when the market opens shortly in the US. I'm a few hours ahead here in Asia. So there could be something of a re-rating, dare I say, in the months ahead. But it's starting from such a low point that it's going to take a heck of a time to catch up. So what this will likely do is shift the green line, the fair value, higher. But for now, this isn't a stock that is a priority because look at this in terms of where it's rallied off the lows as well. It's not sanity. So maybe I move up from F to now merely see on the basis of the new information that's going to be priced into the model. But if that proves to be a false dawn, it can just get back in F. I think this is a really weak company. So now we should move on to storage. We're getting through this list. We've got 3 companies left. There's Western Digital and SanDisk within storage. So Western Digital, WDC, let's take a look at where this might be. My instinct is, well, I don't know actually anything about it. I always think of Western Union when I see this, and it reminds me of trying to get money in Argentina to pay for bloody groceries. It's cash economy there. It was a pain in the ass. This is 755th, so similar to Intel. Is this an F-tier stock then? Look at this absolute dog shit. And yet look at that rally. My God, what is going on? It's gone from $23 to over $555. Am I seeing things? Is that a 400% premium? What on earth is going on with WDC? This is mental. This is absolutely mental. I haven't seen— like, of all the stock charts we've seen so far with this going sideways for so long, I haven't seen anything as preposterous. My God. I think since Bitcoin, this might even be crazier. This is insane. This is absolutely insane. This is an F-tier stock that's trading at an F-tier valuation. I'm lost for words. I am lost for words. Uninvestable. What the hell is this? Tell you when the last time I saw anything like this, it was the meme stocks, the short squeeze on the likes of AMC going from like $10, $11 to over $300. The case of Western Digital. It was a, people would say it was a sleeper for a decade. It had a lost decade and it's just become a hype stock from $30. It's the same thing as AMC. I'm sorry guys, that's mental. This is the worst stock on the list without doubt. So is SanDisk any different? Let's look it up here. It's not even in the universe, so it's very hard for me to make a judgment on it. It's not a quality stock. If I pull up the valuation separately here just to see roughly what kind of a premium or discount La La Land is trading at, so over 50 times cash flow and the median is 30 and it was up at 75. So this is currently trading at, I call it a 70 or 80% premium. It's just bananas. It looks like Zimbabwean inflation. The hell is this? It's the same trade as we've just seen in Western Digital. This is just mental, guys. Where would I put this? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below if you own SanDisk, if you own Western Digital, or any of these companies. You think I've got it wrong? Tell me where I'm wrong. I think in the long term, as they say, the market is a weighing machine, not a voting machine, and the truth comes out in the earnings. But getting back to it, There's one company, and we've yet to have an S-tier company that might just come to the rescue. And ironically, it's the most famous. It's Nvidia. And for many years I did not give it any attention. It was far too consensus, and I guessed it's probably an A-tier company, but I just couldn't have owned it. Is Nvidia gonna save us, or is it also gonna get binned With Broadcom for similar reasons. Is it anywhere near to the top, which I'd expect it to be? Okay, in 25th, it is in the top few percent of all of these companies. You can see the footprint here. That comes as no surprise. It is a big, beautiful stock. When you look at the fundamentals, they'll make your head spin. And you can see here also how it absolutely smashes the competition too. But tell me something new. Well, let's take a look at the chart, see where it is. If I didn't know any better, just pulled this chart up for the first time in a year, couple of years, 5 years, or the first time of seeing it, I'd look at that and go, oh, we're in a bubble. However, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the stock, sorry, not just any stock, Nvidia is cheap, is trading at a 20 6% discount to where it should be trading according to the historical average multiple, which has it at around $285, call it $300, and it's at $212. And believe it or not, It was also undervalued in 2025, and it was in fact undervalued between 2011 and 2015 for 4 years. So you could have been accumulating from a share price, my goodness, of less than a dollar through to about 80 cents, and it's now at $200. It hasn't been cheap since until last year. So I know I'm waffling a bit because I'm so excited. Tell you what, I need a drink of water to cool down. NVIDIA is the only S-tier stock within the AI 11. And that exuberance aside for one minute, guys, to be really sober about this is in itself the most important conclusion. The only stock that matches all the criteria for investment is NVIDIA. And there's still a whole potential debt bubble involving Nvidia, which Nvidia is kind of the cornerstone or the centerpiece of, at the heart of this problem. If indeed it does bust, it will be a big problem. And yet that's the only sure thing within semis right now, or AI in general. ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor, I would own. That's why they're in A tier, but I cannot say they are elite and S tier given the premiums that they're trading at respectively. AMD is a bit of a surprise. I would've figured that these companies were maybe the other way around before looking at them. Intel's got off a little bit lightly because of new information. Samsung, I wouldn't have expected to be C. I thought that was higher. I'd have maybe swapped those two initially before looking into the model and looking at the current picture. And Broadcom I'd have had right up there but for the valuation, which is seemingly the most horrendous premium that we can see in all of these stocks. But as for Western Digital and SanDisk, my goodness, it's just a clown show. I haven't seen anything like this, guys, genuinely. In all my time investing, save for that meme stock era in the pandemic along with crypto. I, I think it's just the same thing. So guys, if you want to give this a spin, test out the screener, all of the other valuation tools that you've seen within that, there's a link in the description. As I say, we can try it for 7 days absolutely free. And if you've enjoyed this video, then watch this one next where I show you exactly how I rebuilt my £2 million portfolio with stocks from every industry, not just the AI names, using this screening model.