An artificial intelligence model designed to help investors pick stock market winners is confident in the recent gains in mid-cap energy stocks. IFi Ai is an investment information company powered by IBM Watsonx artificial intelligence. The company’s models draw on a wide range of market signals and data to predict where individual stocks will go next. Some of the sources that feed into the iFi AI model include macroeconomic updates, news articles, company fundamentals, and technical trading indicators. As of Monday morning, the top idea on the plan was Marathon Petroleum Corp., which was expected to gain nearly 19% over the next 30 days. The stock may be a chaser as it lags behind some other industry leaders. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) is up more than 13% year over year, while Marathon is up 9%. The stock is popular on Wall Street, with 18 of 25 analysts giving it buy or strong buy ratings, according to LSEG. Marathon isn’t the only stock that iFi AI thinks will pay off handsomely next month. As of Monday morning, these five stocks had the highest forecasts and were within the model’s highest confidence interval. The AI model is bullish on more energy stocks, not just Marathon, as Southwest Energy is also involved. Southwest Airlines is even smaller than Marathon, with a market capitalization of less than $10 billion. However, it will outperform the energy sector by 2024, rising 15%. Two other stocks on the list look more like stocks that could rebound after a rocky start to the year. Affirm’s shares are down 31% this year, possibly on worries about what a weak U.S. consumer will mean for the buy now, pay later company. However, JPMorgan analysts did rate Affirm a Buy earlier this month. Meanwhile, software stock Smartsheet is down 12% this year. However, the stock has shown signs of improvement in May, closing at its highest level in more than two months on Friday. SMAR 3M mountain Smartsheet is trading at its highest level in more than two months. One potential driver on the iFi AI list comes from Vertiv, whose shares have more than doubled in 2024. Related strong demand, and organic net sales are expected to grow 11% to 13% this year. The CEO of iFi AI, which launched in March, is CNBC senior analyst and commentator Ron Insana. None of the stocks listed above made it into the top five on the same screen last week.
