10 Best Stocks to Buy After Democrats’ Election Sweep, According to CIBC

8. NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 80

Market Cap: $180.41 billion

NextEra Energy is trying to build what it calls the world’s largest regulated electric utility business, and shareholders have already signed off. Investors in NextEra and Dominion Energy both approved their all-stock combination, and the state and federal regulatory reviews are now moving forward. Chief Executive John Ketchum would lead the combined company.

The deal sits on top of a business that keeps growing. Adjusted earnings rose 9.7% in the third quarter, and the company’s renewable energy arm added wind, solar and battery projects that lifted its backlog to about 36.7 gigawatts. Batteries made up 2.4 gigawatts of the new orders. The merger plan also promises continuity in leadership, board representation and headquarters.

The company’s Florida utility grew the capital it earns a regulated return on by about 9.2% over the year while, in the company’s words, keeping customer bills low. The plan for the merger also keeps the current Dominion dividend flowing until the deal closes, so Dominion shareholders keep being paid while regulators review the deal. For the valuation angle, see our take on whether NextEra’s cheaper price is worth the wait.

7. Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 89

Market Cap: $272.65 billion

Artificial intelligence gave Palo Alto Networks a new product to sell: protection for AI itself. Its Prisma AIRS tool, built to secure AI applications and agents, passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue within four quarters of launch, the fastest ramp of any product in the company’s history.

That fits the pitch behind the stock. The company says customers who consolidate on its platform, which it calls platformization, expand their spending, with net revenue retention above 120% for that group. Recurring revenue from its next-generation security products grew 63% to $9.10 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter, and the company added nearly $1 billion of new recurring revenue in that quarter alone.

Chief Executive Nikesh Arora has set a goal of $20 billion in that measure by fiscal 2030, and he says the latest advances in AI are pushing cybersecurity to the top of corporate technology priorities. The company’s fiscal 2027 guidance calls for revenue growth of 23% to 24%. A separate question is how much of its pay is in stock, which is the subject of our analysis of how Palo Alto’s share-based compensation affects profit.

6. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 169

Market Cap: $5.03 trillion

Apple’s latest results set records. The iPhone maker posted record September-quarter revenue of $114.5 billion, up 12%, and earnings of $2.10 a share, up 14%, capping a fiscal year in which revenue hit an all-time high of $479 billion and earnings growth in the double digits.

A bigger base of devices feeds everything else the company sells. Apple said its installed base of active devices reached a new high across every major product category and geography, and Services revenue set an all-time record. Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said the quarter produced $28 billion in operating cash flow, and the company returned the same amount to shareholders.

The next catalyst is the product lineup. Chief Executive John Ternus described the new iPhone Duo as the most transformational iPhone since the original, and it arrives alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, which he called the company’s most powerful iPhones yet. The iPhone line set its own September-quarter record, and gross margin was 47.9%, including a benefit of about 1 percentage point from tariff refunds. We recently asked whether longer iPhone ownership can still lift profit per customer.

5. Visa (NYSE:V)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 194

Market Cap: $780.73 billion

Visa is growing faster than a company of its size normally can. Fiscal 2026 net revenue rose 15% to $45.9 billion, which Visa described as its strongest growth in more than 15 years once the pandemic rebound and acquisitions are set aside. Net revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter rose 13% to $12.1 billion, and payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions all stayed strong.

Spending across borders is a big part of it. Cross-border volume, excluding transactions within Europe, grew 14% in the quarter, a key driver of its international transaction revenue. Other revenue grew even faster, up 40%, and earnings per share on a GAAP basis rose faster than revenue.

The board backed the numbers with cash. It raised the quarterly dividend 16% to $0.780 a share, and the company returned $25.6 billion to shareholders over the year. Visa also says it moves with whatever changes commerce, and it has been rolling out tools for supplier-spend analytics and virtual-card fraud prevention aimed at business payments. Whether larger client rebates are worth the price is a question we explored for Visa.