Fund manager who ‘pounded the table’ in support of Nvidia eight years ago now likes these AI stocks

Fund manager who ‘pounded the table’ in support of Nvidia eight years ago now likes these AI stocks Barbara Kollmeyer Tue, November 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM GMT+8 6 min read In this article:

NVDA +1.37% AMD +3.93% GOOG -1.04% AAPL +0.21% TSLA +1.71%

The AI and emerging-tech story is not going away, and recent stock pullbacks represent opportunity for longer-term investors, says T. Rowe Price’s Tony Wang. - Getty Images

Nvidia was in the sights of Tony Wang long before the term ChatGPT was ever uttered.

“I have been a portfolio manager for two to three years, but I was the analyst that covered Nvidia and pounded the table to own the stock in 2017-18,” Tony Wang, who runs T. Rowe Price’s top-performing $13 billion Science & Technology Fund PRSCX, told MarketWatch in an interview on Monday.

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Wang’s sharp eye turned T. Rowe Price into a top Nvidia shareholder, while he also led investments in Apple AAPL and Tesla TSLA.

His faith in Nvidia and other top tech stocks that populate his fund — Microsoft MSFT, Broadcom AMD, Meta META, Alphabet GOOGL GOOG, Advanced Micro Devices AMD — hasn’t wavered even as investors increasingly question whether AI investments will pay off.

He brushes aside the most recent ripple: that Google’s AI chips, used to train its highly rated new large language model, could potentially challenge Nvidia’s dominance. “What matters is that overall AI capex is rising, not shrinking and Nvidia remains at the key platform of that spend,” he said in follow-up email comments.

Wang considers recent selloffs in tech names part of a technical derisking from extreme positioning, but sees that as “an opportunity to lean in” for longer-term investors. He argues that mature tech companies are still growing and compounding value, with the scale and distribution to leverage AI.

Wang’s Science & Technology Fund is up 23% this year, outpacing a 14% gain for the S&P 500 and an 18% rise for the Nasdaq 100. And that means he must keep finding the budding Nvidias, and for the fund he’s “constantly rotating into the best opportunities.”

The secret to his success is to invest near the start of a company’s “S-curve,” which tracks how a business will grow over time. The sweet spot lies in being in the 20% or 30% of that S-curve progression, “where most of the returns are,” he said.

Tony Wang, portfolio manager for T. Rowe Price’s Science & Technology Fund - T.Rowe Price

So where is he casting that sharp eye now? Advanced Micro Devices AMD, up 78% this year, is an AI chip stock that he thinks is worth the hype. “They’re designing systems in a really clever way. I think they could earn a lot more than the Street expects” as its products build traction, he said.

Next he believes Alphabet’s Google could become a winner in the AI space, a technology that some thought earlier would disrupt the tech giant. Instead it’s becoming a leader in the artificial-intelligence rollout, with Gemini, and has the computing power to pursue an AI leadership position and the digital properties to monetize it, including Google, YouTube and Gmail, said Wang.

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A newer investment he flags is KLA KLAC, which makes the tools that make semiconductors. “I would say that one is interesting because when technology gets harder, the inspection requirements go up,” he said. “So their tools essentially are the fix for a lot of the process issues, so they’re certainly going to be more important.”

Another holding, Cisco CSCO, which designs, sells and manufactures networking equipment and software, is potentially an underappreciated value-growth story that could have a place in AI, Wang said.

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Celestica CLS, which offers design, manufacturing and supply-chain solutions for tech companies like Alphabet, could be a prime AI contractor for these big data-center buildouts, according to Wang. “They’ve been moving up the value chain with their software and are well-positioned in making these AI boards and systems,” he said.

Helped by Alphabet’s shifting fortunes, Celestica shares are up over 200% this year.

Not a big AI player as yet, e-commerce group Shopify SHOP should be owned for its “multiple S-curves,” with penetration in the U.S. and internationally and a payments business poised for more adoption as well, in Wang’s view.

The markets

U.S. stocks SPX DJIA COMP are mostly lower after the best day for tech in six months. Gold GC00 is higher, while bitcoin BTCUSD is dropping.

Key asset performance

Last

5d

1m

YTD

1y

S&P 500

6705.12

0.49%

-2.47%

14.00%

11.99%

Nasdaq Composite

22,872.01

0.72%

-3.24%

18.44%

20.03%

10-year Treasury

4.044

-6.90

6.40

-53.20

-26.60

Gold

4137.3

2.27%

3.51%

56.76%

57.53%

Oil

58.49

-2.06%

-4.97%

-18.62%

-15.33%

Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points

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The buzz

Retail sales rose a weaker-than-expected 0.2% and producer prices rose 0.3% in September, data delayed by the shutdown showed. ADP data showed that, in the four weeks ending Nov. 8, private employers shed an average of 13,500 jobs, while the gig economy lost 114,000 jobs in September. Also on tap: the S&P Case-Shiller home price index at 9 a.m., and consumer confidence and pending home sales at 10 a.m.

Kohl’s shares KSS are soaring 22% after the retailer lifted guidance, with Best Buy shares BBY rising more modestly after better-than-expected results and upbeat comments on demand.

Shares of Alphabet GOOGL are climbing after a report that Meta META may buy billions of dollars’ worth of Google’s custom chips. Nvidia NVDA and AMD shares AMD are down 4% each.

SanDisk shares SNDK are rallying on news the computer-storage device maker will join the S&P 500 on Friday.

Shares in Chinese tech giant Alibaba BABA are jumping after results impressed the market, with strong growth in AI-related revenue.

HP HPQ, NetApp NTAP, Dell DELL and Autodesk ADSK report after the bell.

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Top tickers

These were the top-searched ticker symbols on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m.:

Ticker

Security name

NVDA

Nvidia

TSLA

Tesla

GOOGL

Alphabet

NIO

NIO

META

Meta

GME

GameStop

TSM

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

PLTR

Palantir

BABA

Alibaba

AMZN

Amazon

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