Bulls at a Breaking Point as AI Flags 2026 Stock Favorites 29/12/2025

HOT stories for today

Market wrap:

• The S&P 500 climbed to an intraday record of 6,945.77 on Friday before paring gains to finish the session little changed. US equities are capping a standout year. The benchmark index is up 17.7% in 2025, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has advanced 14.5%, positioning it for its strongest annual performance since 2021. The Nasdaq Composite has led the gains, rising 22.2% year to date. Stocks have also entered the so-called Santa Claus rally, a seasonally strong period for markets. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has averaged gains of more than 1% during the final five trading days of the year and the first two sessions of the next, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac. 
• Commodities reflected a surge in defensive positioning. Spot gold climbed toward $4,550 an ounce, silver pushed past $76, and copper traded above $12,250 a ton, within roughly $900 of the record reached earlier this summer. The moves underscore investor demand for hard assets amid elevated labor-market stress, inflation holding near 3%, and mounting expectations for interest-rate cuts. Despite persistent pessimism, US consumers continue to spend, supported by credit availability and resilient retail demand, a dynamic that continues to anchor economic growth.
• Trading conditions will be thinner this week ahead of the start of 2026. Wednesday will feature a shortened trading session, while US markets will remain closed on Thursday for the New Year’s Day holiday. The economic calendar is otherwise light, though investors will parse the Federal Reserve’s December meeting minutes, due Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, for clues on policymakers’ thinking as they head into 2026.

AI’s 2026 Tech Stock Picks Stick Close to the Crowd

• When asked to identify the hottest technology stocks for 2026, leading AI chatbots delivered a familiar list, highlighting both their analytical power and their limits as stock pickers. MarketWatch prompted OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and xAI’s Grok to role-play as technology portfolio managers. Nvidia was the unanimous top pick, reflecting its dominance in AI chips and its central role in the industry’s buildout. Microsoft, Broadcom, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. also appeared repeatedly. 
• Rather than uncovering overlooked opportunities, the models largely converged on the same mega-cap names already driving markets. The overlap suggests LLMs are adept at distilling consensus narratives but less effective at producing differentiated investment ideas. Claude emphasized semiconductors as the most durable AI trade, while Gemini added modest variety with software names such as Palantir Technologies and CrowdStrike Holdings. ChatGPT proposed hypothetical portfolio weightings centered on Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon, and Grok stood out by including Oracle, a stock recently pressured by debt concerns. The results underscore how today’s AI models rely on probabilistic pattern matching, reinforce prevailing market associations, and, for now, follow the herd rather than beat it.

Stocks on the move:

• Freeport-McMoRan (FCX): The miner rose 3.1% as gold and other metals climbed to record highs.
• Target (TGT): The retailer gained more than 1% after the Financial Times reported that hedge fund Toms Capital Investment Management has taken a sizable stake. The activist interest comes with the stock down more than 27% for the year.
• Coupang (CPNG): The South Korea–based e-commerce company surged 8% after saying it identified the perpetrator of a recent cybersecurity incident and that the compromised data was limited to about 3,000 accounts.
• Nvidia (NVDA): Shares advanced 1% after the chipmaker agreed to pay $20 billion to acquire assets from artificial-intelligence startup Groq, marking its largest acquisition to date.
• Airlines: Airline stocks fell as a winter storm threatened to disrupt travel. United Airlines (UAL) slipped 0.7%, American Airlines (AAL) dropped 1.9%, and Delta Air Lines (DAL) declined 0.6%.

Watchlist: FCX, TGT, NVDA, DAL, MU, AMD, NVO, MSFT, TSLA

Key Economic Events Today:

EST time

10:00 am: USD Pending Home Sales
10:30 am: USD Crude Oil Inventories


Earnings

No major earnings reports today!





The TEFS Analyst team wishes you a successful day!