|
| What are this week’s market risks or opportunities? |
|
|
| Q2 2026 earnings season just started, and the early numbers point somewhere rare. |
|
| Analysts expected the S&P 500's combined earnings per share, or EPS, to grow 23.2% year-over-year. As of July 10, with only 18 companies reported, that number had already climbed to 23.6%, a second straight quarter above 20%. |
|
| It tends to keep climbing. Most companies beat estimates, replacing lower EPS forecasts with higher actual EPS in the index's running total, and over the past decade that pattern has added about 6 points to the final growth rate. Applied here, Q2 could finish above 29%, maybe closer to 32%. |
|
| Here's why that matters: the S&P 500 hasn't grown EPS this fast since Q4 2021, when it hit 32.0%, the last time it cleared 30% in a quarter. |
|
| At the index level, this could genuinely be the strongest quarter since 2021. But Goldman Sachs says AI infrastructure stocks alone are driving nearly 60% of that EPS growth, so even a 30%+ quarter would be one sector doing most of the lifting, not a broad-based boom. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Which trades should I consider? |
|
|
| Nearly 60% of that earnings growth is coming from AI infrastructure companies, but much of it is already priced into their stocks. |
|
| The more useful question might be where else meaningful growth is showing up, without those gains already baked in. |
|
| In January, Investing.com published our Top 10 AI-picked Stocks of 2026, built from thousands of financial and market datasets. Six months in, our panel of analysts held a mid-year review on-air. |
|
| As of this week's review, our original list from December 2025 had returned about +30% on average year to date, roughly triple the S&P 500, with most of its ten picks in the green, and the biggest winners weren't the Magnificent Seven. |
|
| Alongside that review, we unveiled 10 new names for the second half of 2026. |
|
| Rather than chasing the same winners again, the fresh picks lean toward enterprise software, financials, infrastructure, energy, and defensive sectors. |
|
| Not everyone on our panel agreed on every pick, which made for the more interesting part of the conversation. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Should I consider this trade? |
|
|
| Texas Instruments (TXN), featured in ProPicks AI for July, is a live example of that rotation. |
|
| Shares are up sharply over the past year after a strong Q1: earnings and revenue both beat estimates, marking the company's eighth straight quarter of growth. |
|
| The standout number is its data center business, which nearly doubled from a year ago, meaning TXN is riding the same AI demand as the priciest chip stocks, just without the priciest price tag. Investors are paying roughly a third as much for that growth as they would for names like AMD. |
|
| On top of that, there's a pending $7.5 billion Silicon Labs deal that should add to earnings by 2030. ProPicks AI added the stock in June and it's climbed since, landing it on our Top 10 list for H2 2026. |
|
| Our analysts and WarrenAI still see this mostly as a momentum trade rather than a long-term hold. It's trading near recent highs, and the price already reflects more growth than the near term is likely to deliver. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Data correct to 15.07.2026 |
|
