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Best AI Stock Picks 2026: How Our BullsEye Top 10 Averaged +142% in One Year
- GrowthTech.ai
- Jul 9
- 9 min read
The best AI stock picks of 2026 weren't a lucky guess — they were a ranking. One year ago, our BullsEye Market Intelligence System surfaced ten stocks. Twelve months later, the average is up +142%, led by a memory-chip monster that returned more than six times your money. Here's every name and the real catalyst behind every move.
If you've been searching for the best performing stocks 2026 has produced, the scoreboard below is hard to argue with. One year ago, on July 8, 2025, BullsEye ranked these ten names in its Top 10. By July 8, 2026, nine of the ten finished in positive territory and the group averaged a +142% return. A hypothetical $10,000 spread evenly across all ten positions would be worth about $24,217 today.
No cherry-picking. No hindsight. These were the exact ten names our ranking system surfaced, in the exact order it ranked them — not re-sorted to put the winners on top — tracked over a full 365 days. Below, we break down each stock and the real-world catalysts behind every move.
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The Scoreboard: One Year, Ten Stocks, +142% Average
Tracking period: July 8, 2025 – July 8, 2026 (price-only). Listed in original BullsEye ranking order — not re-sorted by return.
BullsEye Rank | Stock | Price 7/8/2025 | Price 7/8/2026 | 1-Year Return |
1 | Hut 8 (HUT) | $21.94 | $96.74 | |
2 | Kratos Defense (KTOS) | $45.00 | $50.34 | |
3 | Palantir (PLTR) | $138.78 | $134.37 | −3.18% |
4 | Millicom / Tigo (TIGO) | $37.42 | $92.95 | |
5 | Dave Inc. (DAVE) | $283.19 | $383.96 | |
6 | CleanSpark (CLSK) | $11.52 | $12.48 | |
7 | Micron (MU) | $122.45 | $938.38 | |
8 | Hudbay Minerals (HBM) | $10.97 | $21.55 | |
9 | Tutor Perini (TPC) | $47.86 | $74.87 | |
10 | Amphenol (APH) | $98.75 | $158.61 |
One pick did the heavy lifting, but this was no one-stock story. Even excluding our top performer, Micron (+666%), the remaining nine picks still averaged +83.9%. And there was only a single decliner across the entire ranking — Palantir slipped about 3% — while the other nine gained ground, several of them by triple digits.
Now let's look at what actually drove these returns, stock by stock, in original BullsEye ranking order.
1. Hut 8 Corp. (NASDAQ: HUT) — +340.93%
The biggest percentage mover in the ranking, and the clearest reinvention story of the bunch. Hut 8 spent 2026 transforming from a Bitcoin miner into a full-blown AI infrastructure landlord — and the market repriced it accordingly, pushing the stock to fresh all-time highs. The catalysts were concrete: a 15-year, 245 MW lease with Fluidstack at its River Bend campus worth roughly $7.0 billion in base-term value, followed by the first phase of a second campus, Beacon Point, commercialized through a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for 352 MW of capacity with a high-investment-grade tenant. A partnership with Anthropic and Fluidstack framed a build-out path of up to 2,295 MW of AI data-center capacity. Execution risk remains — meaningful AI revenue isn't expected until 2027 — but the contracted pipeline is what took HUT from under $22 to nearly $97.
2. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ: KTOS) — +11.87%
A steadier climber than the headliners, but riding one of the most durable tailwinds in the market: defense modernization. Kratos leaned into unmanned systems, hypersonics, and missile defense, stacking contract wins through 2026 — including an approximate $36 million air-defense system award and a $74 million contract to produce RAM Guided Missile Launching Systems for the U.S. Navy. It also deepened its hypersonics footprint via the Pentagon's MACH-TB 2.0 test-bed program and a new materials-test facility under Project Helios. Q1 2026 revenue rose about 23% to $371 million, and management raised full-year guidance against a record backlog. Not the flashiest gain on the board, but exactly the kind of positive, catalyst-backed grind the ranking is built to surface.
3. Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) — −3.18%
The ranking's lone decliner — and proof that we publish every pick, winners and losers alike. Make no mistake about the business: Palantir posted one of the strongest fundamental years in software, with Q1 2026 revenue up 85% year-over-year to $1.63 billion, U.S. commercial revenue up 133%, and full-year guidance raised toward $7.66 billion. The problem wasn't the company; it was the entry price. PLTR came into our window already priced for perfection after a historic run, and even blistering growth couldn't push the multiple higher over these particular twelve months, leaving the stock down about 3%. A reminder that a great company and a great one-year stock return don't always line up — and a case study in why disciplined ranking beats chasing the most hyped name on the tape.
Results like these are why people keep searching for growthtech.ai reviews — and the results are documented, tracked, and published. Read what members say on Trustpilot, or see the membership options here.
4. Millicom International Cellular / Tigo (NASDAQ: TIGO) — +148.40%
The Latin America telecom consolidator went on offense, and the market rewarded it. Operating under the Tigo brand across the region, Millicom reported Q1 2026 revenue of roughly $1.99 billion — up from $1.37 billion a year earlier — with adjusted EBITDA near €857 million at a 43%-plus margin. The growth was powered by an aggressive acquisition sweep: the $1.215 billion purchase of Telefónica's Chile mobile unit, the Coltel stake in Colombia, and the full acquisition of UNE, among others. Management committed to a $3.00-per-share annual dividend and targeted at least $900 million of equity free cash flow for 2026 while steering leverage toward 2.5x. A cash-generative operator in fast-growing emerging markets — up nearly 150% on the year.
5. Dave Inc. (NASDAQ: DAVE) — +35.58%
A repeat BullsEye name, and for good reason: the fintech neobank kept turning its AI underwriting engine into profit. Q1 2026 operating revenue rose 47% year-over-year to $158.4 million, adjusted EBITDA climbed 57% to $69.3 million, and the company raised full-year guidance for the eighth consecutive quarter — to roughly $710–$720 million in revenue with adjusted EPS of $16.25–$16.75. The engine is CashAI, Dave's cash-flow underwriting model, which drove the Q1 28-day delinquency rate to a record low of 1.69% even as ExtraCash originations grew 37% to $2.1 billion. A new funding partnership with Coastal Community Bank is expected to unlock more than $200 million of balance-sheet liquidity. Profitable, AI-driven, and still scaling.
6. CleanSpark, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK) — +8.33%
The most modest gainer on the list, but still green — and still executing on scale. CleanSpark pushed its Bitcoin operation to a peak operational hashrate of 50 EH/s with 808 MW utilized and 1.8 GW of power under contract, growing average monthly hashrate about 18% year-over-year and lifting treasury holdings to nearly 14,000 BTC. The trade-off showed up in the numbers: fiscal Q2 2026 revenue of $136.4 million came in below the prior year as Bitcoin mining economics and weather anomalies pressured output. The stock's single-digit gain reflects that tension between aggressive infrastructure growth and a choppy mining backdrop — proof that "made the Top 10" and "made a fortune" are not the same thing, and that the ranking includes the grinders, not just the rockets.
7. Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) — +666.34%
The single biggest gain in this ranking — and the defining AI-memory trade of 2026. As hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending blew past $700 billion, high-bandwidth memory went from commodity to chokepoint, and Micron sat right on it. The company's entire 2026 HBM supply sold out, HBM4 shipments ramped for next-generation GPU platforms including NVIDIA's Vera Rubin, and Goldman Sachs pegged the DRAM supply-demand gap at the widest in 15 years. The fundamentals caught up violently: fiscal Q3 2026 revenue hit $41.46 billion, up 346% year-over-year, with gross margins near record highs. Analyst price targets marched from four figures toward $2,000. From about $122 to $938 in twelve months — a better-than-six-bagger built on a genuine, contracted shortage.
8. Hudbay Minerals Inc. (NYSE: HBM) — +96.44%
Copper and gold did the heavy lifting. With both metals trading near record highs, the copper-focused miner posted record quarterly revenue, record adjusted EBITDA, and record adjusted earnings in Q1 2026, delivering 27,929 tonnes of copper and 61,700 ounces of gold while holding the line on costs. Hudbay reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance of 110,000–138,000 tonnes of copper and 217,000–272,000 ounces of gold, keeping a clear production runway in front of investors. As electrification and AI data centers drive structural copper demand — the same buildout powering names higher up this list — Hudbay's low-cost, tier-one-jurisdiction portfolio nearly doubled off its starting price.
9. Tutor Perini Corporation (NYSE: TPC) — +56.44%
The civil and infrastructure builder kept converting a record backlog into shareholder returns. Backlog stood at roughly $19.8 billion at the end of Q1 2026 — supported by nine megaprojects won over the prior one-to-three years — giving the company multi-year revenue visibility that few contractors can match. New awards kept landing, including a $651.8 million project to modernize critical power infrastructure at Naval Base Guam. Q1 2026 revenue rose about 11%, and management affirmed full-year adjusted EPS guidance of $4.90–$5.30 while pointing to a materially stronger 2027 as megaprojects hit peak construction. A strengthening balance sheet let Tutor Perini pursue larger jobs solo, keeping more of the economics in-house.
10. Amphenol Corporation (NYSE: APH) — +60.62%
The quiet "picks-and-shovels" winner of the AI build-out: connectors and interconnects. As AI systems grew denser and more power-hungry, demand for Amphenol's high-speed cables, connectors, and power products surged. Q1 2026 delivered record revenue of $7.62 billion, up 58% year-over-year, with adjusted EPS up 68% to $1.06. The IT datacom business did the work — the Communications Solutions segment grew 88% and made up roughly 60% of sales — while orders jumped 78% to a record $9.4 billion for a healthy 1.24:1 book-to-bill. Analysts repeatedly flagged Amphenol as a top AI data-center infrastructure pick. A steady compounder riding the same wave as the flashier names, just from the hardware layer.
What Members Are Saying
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You can hear directly from members in their own words here — real people, real results, real retirements changed.
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The Bottom Line
The best performing stocks 2026 produced — Micron's +666% run, Hut 8's near-fivebagger, Millicom's +148% — were all sitting in a single BullsEye Top 10 ranking published twelve months ago. The average across all ten: +142%. Nine of the ten finished positive, in the exact order the system ranked them, with only Palantir slipping — and even the other nine, stripped of the top performer, averaged +83.9%.
Systematic, data-driven market intelligence. Not headlines. Not hype. Not guesswork.
Risk Disclaimer
GrowthTech.ai does not give out individual financial or investment advice, act as a personal financial, legal, or institutional investment advisor, or publicly or privately promote the purchase or sale of any security, investment, or the adoption of any specific financial strategy. All information on or from the website should be viewed as educational and informational for your own due-diligence purposes and shall not be viewed as financial advice in any security. Additionally, the AI analytics system does not take into account elements like your trading background, individual aims and ambitions, financial situation, or risk tolerance. All forms of investing, stock signals, and investment plans carry the possibility of losing part or perhaps all of your initial investment. Figures reflect a specific 12-month window (July 8, 2025 – July 8, 2026) and are price-only returns that exclude dividends, fees, taxes, and timing differences. Past performance does not guarantee future results. You should always get advice from a licensed financial counselor prior to implementing any financial plans.
Sources
Hut 8 Corp. Q1 2026 results and River Bend / Beacon Point AI data-center leases — SEC Form 8-K and CoinDesk, February–May 2026
Kratos Defense Q1 2026 results, air-defense and RAM contract awards, MACH-TB 2.0 / Project Helios — Kratos newsroom / GlobeNewswire, May–July 2026
Palantir Q1 2026 results and raised FY2026 guidance (AIP, U.S. commercial growth) — company releases / analyst coverage, 2026
Millicom (Tigo) Q1 2026 results, Chile/Coltel/UNE acquisitions, dividend — Motley Fool transcript / SEC filings, 2026
Dave Inc. Q1 2026 results, CashAI metrics, Coastal Community Bank funding — PR Newswire / earnings coverage, June 2026
CleanSpark fiscal Q2 2026 results and monthly operational updates (hashrate, BTC) — SEC Form 8-K / StockTitan, 2026
Micron fiscal Q3 2026 results, HBM4 ramp, DRAM shortage commentary — S&P Global / analyst previews, June 2026
Hudbay Minerals Q1 2026 record results and 2026 production guidance — GlobeNewswire / SEC Form 6-K, May 1, 2026
Tutor Perini Q1 2026 results, $19.8B backlog, Naval Base Guam award — SEC Form 8-K / company releases, 2026
Amphenol Q1 2026 record results and AI datacom demand — company releases / analyst coverage, May–June 2026
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