Here’s your big free reminder on AI stocks for 2026
This is The Takeaway from today’s Morning Brief, which you can sign up to receive in your inbox every morning along with:
My gym trainer hit me with a dose of tough love this week.
We are in the middle of a program called “12 Days of Suffering” — honestly some of the most grueling workouts I’ve ever done in my life. I can barely stand for my live show Opening Bid each day.
On Wednesday, I almost passed out on a rowing machine. My trainer told me, while I was on the ground, “No one is coming to save you. Get your ass up.”
It was much-appreciated motivation for the self-motivated me.
And I want to give you a similar shot of inspiration as we get ready to enter 2026: No one is coming to save your portfolio from complacency on AI stocks.
How’s that Oracle (ORCL) you bought in September working out? Still riding the once-buzzy CoreWeave (CRWV)? I imagine in both cases, things are not looking too rosy. Why? Because you did no homework on these companies — and simply bought them because they were AI-related and in the news.
Do better!!
The reality is you have to think beyond the obvious AI stocks in 2026 to drive gains. Beyond the richly valued “Magnificent 7.” Beyond a company like Oracle, whose billionaire CEO, Larry Ellison, is also trying to help his son buy a struggling Warner Bros. (WBD). You have to think deeply about where else the AI trade will appear and create value.
Map this stuff out on a whiteboard if you have to!
AI is having a profound impact inside companies. As a result, it will drive a good bit of positive earnings surprises in many of the other 493 companies housed in the S&P 500 (^GSPC).
Here are two examples of the work you need to be doing on AI investing.
The appetite to own AI plays is broadening to more under-the-radar names, including companies that are using the technology aggressively in the industrial sector. One of those companies is logistics giant C.H. Robinson (CHRW), led by one of the best CEOs you probably never heard of: David Bozeman.
Bozeman has led the 120-year-old logistics player for more than two years, after stints in transportation operations at Amazon (AMZN), Harley-Davidson (HOG), and Caterpillar (CAT).
Since Bozeman’s arrival, C.H. Robinson has leaned hard into AI to improve operating profits. Its stock price is up 55% in 2025. FYI, Meta’s (META) stock is only up 11% this year! That’s despite Bozeman telling me in a new episode of my Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast (video above) that the economy isn’t growing too quickly and the freight recession continues.