In all industry there is a benchmark stock, examine it to see the trends in the industry and how is it doing. If you want to know about phones and music check Apple; you will still need to do additional research but knowing how Apple is doing will tell you things about that industry. One of the upcoming fields is Artificial Intelligence or AI and every day we seem to hear more about it. According to Scott Barlow, he believes the benchmark stock of AI is Nvidia. The company is a semiconductor manufacturer specializing in graphics processing units (GPS) to handle visual data and currently the majority of revenue comes from the video game industry. Remember the video game industry generates more revenues than movies, to be a leader means the company is big.

Citigroup analysts believe AI will grow from $8 billion to $47 billion by 2020. At the moment the purest play is Nvidia. Whether you own the stock or not, it is worth putting on your list to understand. The stock is up 125% in the past 3 years and 58.8% of revenues comes from the gaming industry. The other part of the company is what Mr. Barlow believes is important.

At present the Data Center generates 12% of revenues (this is the big data analysis aspect of the company) and auto is 7% of revenues. If you believe automobiles will be self driving Nvidia will be a big reason for the success.

Mr. Barlow points out 3D printing was supposed to be a big profit area, but it is not.  Maybe AI will be the be all and maybe it will not be. If it is Nvidia will play a significant role.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every industry has a benchmark for you to determine what is good or not so good. We all look for them and for new industries we need help in determining what is good and where to begin. Whatever you earn your income, you will or should quickly learn the benchmarks in your industry. A classic example in the banking industry is the loan loss ratio – is it rising or falling? Ideally AI can help with that.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.