3 Must-Own Tech Stocks Set to Dominate Q3-Q4 2025

The tech rally isn't dead—it's just getting selective. These picks combine AI firepower, cash flow moats, and valuations that won't make your portfolio scream. Wall Street's sleeping—time to front-run them.

1. The AI Infrastructure Play

Forget chatbots—the real money's in picks and shovels. One semiconductor giant's 5nm chip ramp is quietly eating Nvidia's lunch.

2. The Cloud Cash Machine

While SaaS startups burn cash, this legacy player's hybrid cloud biz prints money. 18% operating margins and growing—boring never looked so profitable.

3. The Regulatory Arbitrage

Antitrust threats have crushed this stock 30% YTD. Perfect. Its ad tech stack still dominates—and now it's cheap enough for even compliance officers to love.

Bottom line? The 'Magnificent 7' era is over. Welcome to the Ruthless 3—where fundamentals actually matter again. (Cue hedge fund managers suddenly remembering what 'P/E ratio' means.)

Meta Platforms

(META -0.49%) stock has appreciated almost nine times over since its 2022 lows, which is incredible to think about. Therefore, some may believe the stock is now overvalued.

But in terms of valuation today, Meta is still not expensive. Shares currently trade at 27.6 times earnings, which is a little bit above the market. Still, those earnings incorporate two big investments that are forward-looking and not really benefiting current revenue: Reality Labs, and Meta's massive new artificial "superintelligence" venture.

In the first half of the year, the Reality Labs segment lost a whopping $8.7 billion, while the "core" advertising business saw $46.7 billion in operating income. Moreover, that Core operating income may be impacted by increased depreciation costs of Meta's recent AI-related capital spending.

Yet just stripping out Reality Labs losses, Meta appears to on track to make over $100 billion in operating profit this year through its "core" Facebook and Instagram platforms. In that light, its current $1.9 trillion market cap doesn't look that demanding in relation to the CORE ads business, which grew an impressive 21.4% last quarter.

If, for some reason, the metaverse and artificial superintelligence bets don't work out, CEO Mark Zuckerberg could just cancel those investments and concentrate on Meta's core platforms, which have some of the strongest network effects of any business today.

In that scenario, Meta should still do well. However, if Zuckerberg's massive bets lead to AI superintelligence before its peers get there, there's significant upside. Since Meta is one of just a few companies that could crack superintelligence first, it's a must-own stock, given its reasonable price today.

Applied Materials

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment vendor(AMAT -0.31%) still finds its stock almost 30% below last summer's all-time highs, while trading at a quite reasonable 19 times 2025 earnings estimates and 18 times 2026 earnings estimates.

There is perhaps some concern over the the near-term growth outlook, especially after rivalsaid last month that it couldn't guarantee a growth year in 2026. U.S.-China tensions may also be playing a part, as sales to Chinese customers made up 25% of Applied's revenues last quarter.

However, Applied may be in a better position than ASML for the NEAR and medium-term. This is because chipmakers are currently migrating to a new type of transistor architecture, going from finFET transistors, with the gate on three sides of the transistor source, to gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, in which transistors are stacked vertically with the gate on all four sides.

This new innovation is less about lithography, which is where ASML dominates, and more about etch and deposition, which is where Applied generates most of its business. Furthermore, there is likely the need for a combination of innovative packaging and metrology technologies to pull the new transistor architecture off. As the most diversified semicap equipment company, Applied is in prime position to offer combined solutions to help customers solve these complex problems.

With its stock down significantly from its highs, Applied has a dividend yield that stands at 1%. However, the company has raised its dividend at high rates over the last three years, with a 19% increase in 2023, a 25% increase in 2024, and a 15% increase in 2025. And the company's payout ratio is still below 20% of earnings, leaving even more firepower to raise the dividend and repurchase shares in the future.

On Semiconductor

Power, analog, and sensor chip producer(ON -1.18%) fell hard after its recent earnings, but the drop may be an excellent opportunity for long-term investors.

At first glance, it's hard to understand why On fell after earnings. The company beat revenue expectations and met adjusted earnings expectations, while Q3 guidance was basically in-line. But On had experienced a strong rally off the April bottom, so perhaps investors were expecting more in the way of a recovery in its core auto and industrial chip business.

On's end-markets have been in one- to three-year downturns, depending on the market, as the post-COVID buying spree in cars and industrial chips gave way to a painful hangover. Yet while the recovery may not have been as strong as hoped, On's normally conservative management seems assured the bottom is in. CEO Hassane El-Khoury said in the press release, "We are beginning to see signs of stabilization across our end markets, and we remain well positioned to benefit from a market recovery."

On is a leader in silicon carbide chips, which are increasingly needed in electric vehicles (EVs), energy infrastructure, and even AI data centers, although that data center revenue is small right now. While the core EV market has been slowing in the U.S. and Europe, if EVs are in fact the future, On should do well over the long-term. Meanwhile, El-Khoury noted On's AI data center revenue nearly doubled last quarter relative to the prior year. So, when On's auto and industrial end markets fully recover, this new high-growth data center business could be a cherry on top.

Meanwhile, On has still been producing cash FLOW even during this downturn, enabling it to repurchase stock at low prices as investors wait for a recovery. Thus, the post-earnings give-back looks like a good opportunity to add to this long-term winner, which seems set for an inevitable recovery over the next couple of years.