Bank of America reveals its top stocks for exposure to multi-trillion dollar future trends

Published Sun, Oct 17 20217:11 PM EDT

Bank of America has updated its thematic picks for the fourth quarter, naming its top stocks across trends it expects to transform the world's economies, markets and populations in the coming decades. The Wall Street firm publishes a list of what it calls its thematic primer picks every quarter, all of which are buy-rated by the bank. These primer stocks have a "material" — i.e. high or medium — exposure to their respective themes, BofA said. The themes covered by the bank in its Oct. 5 note, called ""Transforming World – Q4 2021 Thematic Primer Picks & Stocklists," include the post-Covid world, the future of work, big data and artificial intelligence. Stock picks The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce as shoppers increasingly turn to social media platforms for their purchases. "[There is] a $2 trillion transfer in value between bricks and mortar and online clicks," the analysts said. Website builder Squarespace is one of several new additions to the e-commerce theme. Payments platforms Paysafe and Crane also feature on the list, as well as Chinese grocery app Dingdong and top South Korean e-commerce site Coupang . Rounding off the list are women's apparel retailer Torrid and online furniture retailer Overstock.com . At the same time, the pandemic has also reshaped the future of work. Organizations around the world have responded to Covid restrictions by embracing remote working as the default. They are also increasingly adopting digitization and automation in their businesses. Meanwhile, the rise of the gig economy has brought the traditional work model under the microscope. Sectors such as digital consultancy, retraining, childcare and industrial robots could all benefit from the "future work" trend, say the analysts, with Bank of America valuing this opportunity at $14 trillion. In this space, the investment bank likes freelancing marketplace Upwork , AI-enabled on-demand industrial manufacturing marketplace Xometry , legal technology firm Disco , as well as video cloud platform Kaltura and cloud software solutions provider Intapp . Meanwhile, big data and artificial intelligence continue to have ever-wider applications across diverse industries. Bank of America is bullish on the theme's potential, expecting "$15.7 trillion in GDP gains by 2030 across high tech, data analytics, autos, industrials, telecom, healthcare and financials". Data-driven marketing technology firm Zeta Global , precision medicine company Relay , financial technology solutions provider MeridianLink , as well as healthcare solutions provider Convey Health and Bright Health are all on the list for this quarter. Bank of America's picks include several companies with exposure to multiple themes. Amazon and Microsoft score the highest with exposure to 16 themes, while Alphabet has exposure to 15 themes.

A Bank of America branch in New York's Times Square.

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