In just two to three years, the debate around AI and stock picking has shifted drastically. Not long ago, many said there was no point in letting AI chatbots pick stocks, and that you could only use them for research. Today, many firms and companies are handing portfolios over to AI agents amid a fast rise in AI learning and context memory. We have followed that shift through the AI portfolios that Claude, ChatGPT and others run with real money. See Claude’s best-performing picks here.
Retail Investors Are Handing Over Control
Wall Street is moving fast. Brokerages including Robinhood and Webull now let customers connect their portfolios to AI agents such as Claude and Codex, which can then buy and sell on their own, The Wall Street Journal reported in September. Moomoo, an online brokerage and trading platform, made agentic trading available in April, and its U.S. chief executive estimates that about 20% of its trading volume could come from agents by the end of the year, the Journal reported.
The Journal gave several examples of everyday investors who are already doing this. It mentioned an investor who runs a team of Claude agents which scan the market for stocks and ETFs, check open positions before the close and write a weekly performance report. The investor reportedly said the agents are beating most of the accounts he runs himself.
Claude runs its own portfolio in the Rallies arena too, and it has put 14.5% of it into a data center contractor. See why Claude made that bet here.
Researchers see risks too. A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper found that AI models asked to build an investment strategy picked concentrated portfolios, high-valuation stocks and the companies with the most media coverage, and did not beat passive benchmarks, the Journal reported. Irene Aldridge, a former quant trader who studies AI in markets, told the Journal that investors do this at their own risk and that many agents using the same data could crowd into the same trades and add volatility.
Investors Still Use AI With Caution
Most investors are not ready to hand over control. A Vanguard survey of 6,686 of its investors in June found that 32% have used AI for financial guidance, but most have little or no trust in it, and 37% of users say they received wrong information. Only 4% of younger AI users let it make decisions for them, and about 8 in 10 investors say they are uncomfortable with AI acting on its own, Vanguard said in a September report. Even Elon Musk’s Grok runs a stock portfolio in the arena. Find Grok’s top 10 picks here.
Gemini Is Beating the S&P 500
That is the backdrop for Gemini’s run in the Rallies AI Arena. Rallies is an AI investing app that gives several leading AI models money to trade stocks. Models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok each manage a $100,000 portfolio. Rallies told them to beat the S&P 500. Rallies Arena said on X on Oct. 20 that Gemini is up 26% since the contest began in late November, compared with a 13.9% return for the S&P 500 over the same period. ChatGPT is also ahead, with its portfolio up 75.6% since March, according to Rallies Arena. Check ChatGPT’s latest 10 picks here.
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
Methodology
We ranked the 7 stocks in Gemini’s portfolio in ascending order based on the number of hedge fund investors at the end of the second quarter of 2026. The data comes from Insider Monkey’s database of 1,006 hedge funds. The performance figure for each stock shows its gain or loss since Gemini bought it, according to Rallies data as of Oct. 22. Today’s price is the closing price on Oct. 22.
#7 Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 59
Stock Price When Gemini Bought: $595.88
Today’s Price: $552.35
Northrop Grumman is down 7.3% since Gemini bought it, according to Rallies data as of Oct. 22. It makes up 19.6% of the portfolio, the second-largest position. Northrop Grumman builds military aircraft, missile systems and space hardware for the US government. The company reported third-quarter results on Oct. 20, raised its 2026 profit forecast and said its backlog hit a record.
Morgan Stanley raised its price target after the report. The shares had slid in the weeks before earnings because investors worried that a Democratic win in the midterms could limit defense spending. Northrop built the B-2 stealth bomber and is now building the B-21 Raider, an edge that rivals struggle to copy. Check the full moat breakdown here.
#6 NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 80
Stock Price When Gemini Bought: $85.30
Today’s Price: $81.90
NextEra Energy is down 4.0% since Gemini bought it, according to Rallies data as of Oct. 22. It is the largest position in the portfolio at 36.0%. NextEra owns Florida Power & Light, one of the biggest US electric utilities, and builds wind and solar projects.
The company reported third-quarter earnings per share above estimates on Oct. 21 and said it still targets the high end of its 2026 adjusted earnings range. Revenue came in below estimates, and the stock rose 4.6% on Oct. 22. HSBC kept its Buy rating the same day. Gemini said it bought NextEra because AI-driven power demand is a multi-year tailwind that the market has not priced in yet. Read Gemini’s full reasoning here.
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