This week's hottest U.S. stock: It's not Tesla or DJT, but AppLovin

Tesla and Trump Media Technology Group (DJT) saw their stock prices soar after Trump's election, but this week, the hottest stock in the U.S. market is a new dark horse—AppLovin. Driven by significantly better-than-expected performance and AI profit expectations, AppLovin's stock price surged 46% this Thursday, with the company's total market value briefly surpassing $100 billion. Currently, the stock price is reported at $290. AppLovin's cumulative increase since the beginning of the year is nearly 650%, far exceeding Nvidia's 206% increase during the same period. CNBC commented that this is the best-performing tech stock in the U.S. capital market this year. The net worth of AppLovin's founder, Adam Foroughi, has soared alongside the stock price, reaching $10.9 billion, placing him 251st on the world's billionaire list. What has driven this advertising technology company's market value to exceed $100 billion, and why has its stock price increased so dramatically this year? In addition to AppLovin's impressive performance, AI has played a significant role. Performance Exceeds Expectations, AI Advertising Engine AXON Fuels Stock Surge According to public information, AppLovin is an online application gaming and advertising technology company that profits through e-commerce advertising on mobile applications and gaming platforms. In 2021, AppLovin went public on NASDAQ. At that time, during the pandemic, online gaming experienced a surge, allowing AppLovin to profit, with Google, X, and Meta as its partners. Advertising spending is crucial for the growth of gaming products, and its influence is increasing. As AI becomes increasingly popular, AppLovin has also launched the AI advertising engine model AXON 2.0 to keep up with the times. The company has developed a new intelligent advertising software solution, eDiscovery, using this search engine, which can efficiently conduct large-scale advertising auctions between demand and supply in just a few microseconds. In a recent earnings call, Foroughi stated that AppLovin's goal is to achieve an annual growth rate of up to 30%, partly due to its AI-driven Axon 2.0 advertising engine. The company's third-quarter performance significantly exceeded analysts' expectations. AppLovin's third-quarter report released on November 7 showed quarterly revenue of $1.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39%; profit of $434 million, a year-on-year increase of 300%; adjusted EBITDA profit margin of 60%, with software platform revenue, including the AXON AI advertising engine, growing to $835 million, a year-on-year increase of 66%, and the adjusted profit margin for this software platform was 78%, all exceeding Wall Street expectations. The company stated in its letter to shareholders: We achieved remarkable performance in the third quarter. Our AXON model continuously improves through self-learning, and more importantly, our engineering team made technological advancements this quarter. As we continue to refine our model, our advertising partners can successfully scale their spending Oppenheimer Holdings' Martin Yang stated: Investors have once again underestimated how long AXON 2.0 can enhance the company's performance, expand profit margins, and maintain operational leverage. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said in a report to investors on Thursday, "AppLovin's performance continues to be impressive," and reiterated his outperform rating, believing that the stock has almost no downside at current levels