There are no shortage of stock market winners for investors to choose from looking forward to 2026. Indeed, equity returns in 2025 are slated to come in around 17%, the third consecutive year of double-digit returns for patient investors.
Among the winners, there are a number of stocks I think can continue to outperform in the year ahead. In this piece, I thought I’d dive into two companies that have blown away the market’s return this year, and been key drivers of this performance. These are companies I think can continue to outperform in 2026, and may still be buying opportunities after their impressive 2025.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
In the semiconductor sector, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD | AMD Price Prediction) has been a top performer, surging 80% on a year-to-date basis. The company’s return at the time of writing is just a hair shy of this amount, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rally on the last day of the year take this stock above an 80% return for investors.
Heading into 2025, I’m not so sure that investors would have taken such a view on AMD, considering the performance Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and other rivals in the high-performance chip space have produced in the past. Nvidia is the clear leader in this sector, and that’s probably going to remain the case in 2026 and for a few years ahead.
However, investors appear to be clearly banking on a broadening out trade among semiconductor suppliers. AMD is riding the momentum of hyperscalers and other enterprises broadening their outlook beyond a single-vendor Nvidia stack. And with a number of new chips, and a combination of AI GPUs, EPYC CPUs and AI PCs, there’s a lot to like about how AMD is positioned moving forward into 2026.
The company’s recent earnings, which cited 46% year-over-year growth on the top line and earnings growth of around 30% per year is impressive, as is the company’s 54% gross profit margin. However, the company’s forward guidance for Q4 revenue to come in around $9.6 billion and EPS to continue to grow from here, bode well for investors who think that this whole AI spending dynamic will continue. I’m of the view that AMD could continue to pick up share from Nvidia in such a scenario, and this stock is a top pick of mine for this reason heading into 2026.
Alphabet (GOOG)
With a 65% year-to-date return thus far in 2025, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) is another top mega-cap tech stock I think can have another solid year in 2026.
The search and cloud giant’s earnings have continued to accelerate this past year, with the company’s Q3 numbers coming in 16% higher on the top line, and 33% higher on the bottom line. That impressive margin expansion comes from Alphabet’s higher-margin businesses driving more of its sales. And notably, the company’s Google Cloud business continues to grow at a 34% top line clip, a move that could replace much of its cash flow deterioration seen in search, if AI is the headwind many expect it to be.
The thing is, Alphabet is a sneaky AI company to bet on, given its investment in Perplexity (and its own AI applications and integrations) many analysts think can drive outsized growth in the quarters and years ahead. And with its own Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) powering much of its cloud infrastructure buildout, expectations that this business line could grow over time as other tech players begin buying such chips from Alphabet to enhance their own inference activities – at a much more favorable price point to chips provided by Nvidia, AMD and other players – could make Alphabet the chip stock to own heading into 2026.
I’m of the view that both AMD and Alphabet can win in 2026 as a result of being under-the-radar chip plays that are now getting their due, and expectations that the overall Capex spending on AI infrastructure will continue. We’ll see how things ultimately turn out, but for now, these companies do look poised for another solid year.
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