CIBC Capital Markets recommended a list of top stock picks after the Democratic sweep of Congress, according to CNBC, citing a potentially tougher regulatory environment for corporate America. In a report published the day after the midterm vote, the Canadian bank said its Democratic basket was designed to hold up in a more defensive market, driven by a less business-friendly environment. It had built two baskets before the election: one for a Democratic-controlled Congress and one for a Republican-controlled Congress.
The Democratic list holds 36 stocks. The bank leaned toward major technology platforms and multinational companies over domestic ones, and it tilted toward lower-volatility names wherever it could, expecting investors to grow more cautious. The basket also stretches across consumer staples, real estate, health care, financials and utilities, so it is not only a technology bet. Beyond the largest technology companies, it also picked businesses in cybersecurity, consulting, payments, health insurance, waste services and utilities.
How CIBC Reads a Regulation-Driven Market
Christopher Harvey, CIBC’s head of equity and portfolio strategy, wrote that in a more regulation-driven scenario, the bank would trim its exposure to the suppliers that build out AI infrastructure and lean toward the large cloud platforms and software companies.
The Republican basket is the mirror image. Its 45 names favor AI exposure, based on expectations of limited regulation and less resistance to data-center construction under a Republican-led Senate. Together, the two lists work as opposing bets on how much Washington will push back on corporate America. Readers following the group can find more names in our list of tech stocks investors are talking about.
Why Data Centers May Still Get Built
Harvey also cautioned against writing off the data center boom. Campaign promises should be respected, he wrote, but data centers bring jobs, economic growth and a larger tax base that most politicians want, and few of them want the blame for losing the AI race to China. CNBC separately reported that some economists see political pushback as a way to let some air out of an AI bubble without popping it. For another set of names, see our ranking of the most promising technology stocks to buy right now.
Not every group rallied on the news. Defense stocks slid more than 2% on Wednesday on fears that Democrats will curb spending, although Wolfe Research analyst Myles Walton told clients the knee-jerk reaction could fade quickly, pointing to past cases in which defense contractors recovered from election-driven sell-offs. Overall, the Dow had soared 1,500 points that day, its best session since April 2025.
Our Methodology
To compile our list, we reviewed the stocks identified in CNBC’s coverage of CIBC Capital Markets’ 36-stock Democratic basket. CIBC has favored large technology platforms, multinationals, and lower-volatility names amid expectations of regulatory scrutiny. From these, we selected the 10 with the most hedge fund holders in Insider Monkey’s Q2 2026 database of hedge funds, and counted the list down from there.
Note: All data was sourced on November 11, 2026.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 612% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 375 percentage points (see more details here).
10 Best Stocks to Buy After Democrats’ Election Sweep, According to CIBC
10. Accenture (NYSE:ACN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 69
Market Cap: $151.90 billion
Accenture’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue was $18.7 billion, up 7% in local currency from a year earlier, and new bookings for the quarter reached $22.2 billion. Managed Services contracts, in which Accenture runs a client’s technology operations for years, hit a record $12.8 billion. Managed Services bookings carried a book-to-bill of 1.4, and the year brought a record number of client deals worth $100 million or more.
For fiscal 2027, Accenture expects earnings of $14.39 to $14.81 a share and plans to return at least $9.5 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. It also said revenue from work with its ten biggest technology partners grew faster than the company overall.
Fixed-price work, which includes outcome-based contracts, is now more than 65% of bookings, and Accenture deployed $4.9 billion across 17 acquisitions in fiscal 2026. It returned a record $11.5 billion to shareholders that year and generated $11.6 billion in free cash flow on fiscal 2026 revenue of $74.2 billion. Our look at whether Accenture is the market’s most overlooked AI play takes that debate further for readers who want more on the AI story.
9. Cigna Group (NYSE:CI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77
Market Cap: $79.60 billion
Cigna’s latest report came with a higher forecast. The health services giant now expects 2026 adjusted earnings of at least $30.60 a share, and total revenue rose 6% to $73.7 billion. The Cigna Healthcare insurance arm lifted its own profit forecast as well. That arm’s adjusted revenues rose 9% on premium rate increases, and its pre-tax adjusted income rose 15% in the third quarter on higher investment income and better efficiency.
One standout is Specialty and Care Services, the Evernorth unit that distributes and dispenses complex drugs. Its pre-tax adjusted income grew 15% too, helped by wider use of lower-cost biosimilars and specialty generics, which lower costs for clients and patients. The company also kept buying back stock, repurchasing 1.8 million shares for about $500 million so far this year.
Management is also laying out a long runway. It targets 10% to 14% annual growth in adjusted earnings per share through 2030, backed by a $3 billion modernization and productivity program meant to fund itself. Our piece on why Cigna’s forward earnings multiple signals value even with earnings risks in view covers the valuation side.
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.
4. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 254
Market Cap: $1.66 trillion
Meta’s advertising business kept growing quickly while the company spends on artificial intelligence. Third-quarter revenue rose 26% to $64.6 billion, driven by a 14% jump in the average price of an ad and a 10% increase in ads delivered.
Meta guided fourth-quarter revenue to $73 billion to $76 billion, which would extend the run. Capital expenditures were $34.91 billion in the quarter. Cash flow from operations was $32.79 billion in the third quarter, and the company ended it with $82.45 billion in cash and marketable securities. Revenue in the United States and Canada grew especially fast, and the company said it expects to spend heavily on data centers to keep up with demand for its AI products. It also expects losses at Reality Labs, its virtual and augmented reality segment, to decline compared with 2025.
The spending has a goal. Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the quarter delivered major milestones toward “personal superintelligence for everyone,” including the launch of Muse and Muse Wonder, the company’s first frontier model. On the messaging side, our look at WhatsApp as a business beyond advertising goes deeper.
3. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 273
Market Cap: $3.97 trillion
Microsoft says cloud demand still exceeds its available supply. Azure revenue grew 48% in the fiscal first quarter, ahead of the company’s own expectations, even though delays at outside data-center providers held it back. Microsoft Cloud revenue reached $63.9 billion. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said results beat expectations on revenue, operating income and earnings per share.
The best evidence is the order book. Commercial remaining performance obligation, the value of signed contracts not yet recognized as revenue, rose 73% to $677 billion. Management guided Azure growth of 49% to 50% in constant currency for the fiscal second quarter.
Other parts of the business are helping. Stronger GitHub Copilot adoption lifted the commercial Microsoft 365 cloud business, and revenue at Foundry, the service for building AI applications, more than tripled from a year earlier as the company found more capacity in its existing servers and chips. Operating margin increased slightly to 50%, and cash flow from operations rose 29% to $58 billion. You might also be interested in reading our piece on whether security bundles can lift Microsoft’s profit per customer.
2. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 275
Market Cap: $3.54 trillion
Google Cloud was the standout of Alphabet’s third quarter. Consolidated revenue was $127.6 billion, up 25%. Cloud revenue more than doubled, up 103% to $30.7 billion, and the segment’s operating margin climbed to 36.2%, so the growth is profitable as well as fast. Operating income there was $11.1 billion, more than triple a year earlier.
Behind it sits a backlog of $561 billion in signed cloud contracts, with just over half expected to turn into revenue within 24 months. Part of the strength came from sales of Google’s custom TPU chips, which customers can buy as complete systems, and management expects those sales to keep scaling in the fourth quarter before a meaningful ramp in 2027.
The rest of the company is healthy. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said Alphabet has reached a half-trillion-dollar annual run rate, and the Gemini app now has one billion users. Pichai said the company’s full-stack approach to AI is driving momentum across the business, and Google Services revenue rose 11%. Our analysis of whether Alphabet’s valuation reflects Waymo’s potential takes up one more piece of that story.
1. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 369
Market Cap: $2.93 trillion
Amazon Web Services is speeding up at a size where most businesses slow down. AWS sales grew 39.3% to $46.0 billion in the third quarter, its fastest growth in nearly five years and its sixth straight quarter of faster growth.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy backed it with a forecast of AWS growth above 40% in both 2027 and 2028. The support is a $578 billion backlog of signed commitments that is growing at triple-digit rates and spread across many customers, according to Jassy. New AWS agreements in the quarter included Meta, OpenAI, NVIDIA and Salesforce, and tens of thousands of customers now use its AgentCore service to build AI agents. Amazon also made its custom Trainium AI chips easier to adopt by letting developers run existing PyTorch code on them without rewriting it.
The rest of the company is getting more profitable too. Operating margin reached 13.9%, the highest in Amazon’s history, with Jassy saying broader selection and faster delivery are winning more retail market share at improving margins. The spending behind all this is the subject of our look at whether Amazon’s cash engines can fund its robotaxi bet.
READ NEXT: Amazon (AMZN): Can Custom AI Silicon Outpace Capex Commitments? and Microsoft vs. Amazon: Is AMZN’s AI Growth Being Undervalued by Investors?
