Hot Picks: Stocks chosen by AI spotlight energy, cybersecurity and gold momentum

Artificial intelligence is changing how investors identify market opportunities, offering new ways to spot value and manage risk.

BNN Bloomberg spoke with Doug Clinton, founder and CEO of Intelligent Alpha, who discussed how AI is reshaping investment research and portfolio strategy.

Key Takeaways

• AI-driven investment models are highlighting opportunities in solar, software and gold stocks based on emerging market and macroeconomic trends.
• First Solar is viewed as undervalued, with strong domestic manufacturing and potential to benefit from AI-fuelled energy demand.
• Datadog is positioned within cybersecurity and observability software, sectors more resilient to AI disruption than broader SaaS markets.
• Gold Fields reflects AI’s broader preference for gold and hard assets as potential inflation hedges if interest rates decline.
• Intelligent Alpha’s results show that AI models can rival human managers, with performance matching the S&P 500 since launch.

Read the full transcript below:

ANDREW: For Hot Picks, our guest is the founder and CEO of Intelligent Alpha, a company that uses large language AI models to build investment strategies. We’re joined by Doug Clinton. Doug, thanks very much for joining us once again.

DOUG: Thank you, Andrew. Good to be with you.

ANDREW: I’m looking at GPT, your ETF. It’s not huge, about $20 million right now, and you launched it last September. It’s keeping up with the S&P 500, which is more than you can say for a lot of active fund managers out there.

DOUG: I appreciate you saying that, Andrew. It’s hard to beat the S&P 500, but it’s fun. If you look at the data from Standard & Poor’s, roughly 30 to 40 per cent of human managers beat their benchmarks in any given year. We’ve seen results at Intelligent Alpha that give us confidence AI is proving to be a better investor than humans so far. The great news for us — and for customers who want to invest with AI — is that these models just keep getting smarter. To your point about OpenAI’s recent developer conference, the pace of advancement is remarkable.

ANDREW: Interesting. So your ETF, GPT, is up about 21 per cent since mid-September last year, matching the S&P 500. Let’s get to some of the names your model is flagging right now. First Solar — tell us about that one.

DOUG: First Solar is interesting because we run about 30 different strategies at Intelligent Alpha, and it keeps showing up in several of them. I’ve noticed that consistency as our models evolve. It makes sense, because one of the big unanswered questions in AI right now is how we’re going to power all these data centres. If we spend more than a trillion dollars over the next several years building them, where does the power come from? Solar is likely to be part of that equation. It’s been overlooked as investors focus on nuclear and natural gas. I think First Solar is well positioned to be one of the AI beneficiaries as energy demand grows. It trades at about 12 times forward earnings and hasn’t had that big AI premium yet — that could be the upside case.

ANDREW: Talk to us about Datadog. There are fears AI could disrupt the software business. Remind us what it does.

DOUG: Datadog is an observability platform. For enterprises running software across their organizations, it lets the chief information officer see what’s going on — how applications are performing and whether there are security concerns. That’s what makes Datadog so interesting. Software has been a difficult place to invest this year, with concerns AI might replace some SaaS applications. But when it comes to security, companies won’t rely on unproven, open-source tools for protection. They’ll want trusted platforms. Datadog, and others like CrowdStrike, are better insulated from those AI risks. In fact, demand for these platforms could rise as AI adoption grows.

ANDREW: And finally, Gold Fields is showing up in your model. It’s not just a call on that specific miner, but your model’s been bullish on gold overall?

DOUG: It has been. Since the start of the year, our strategy has been bullish on gold and hard assets more broadly. Gold Fields is the top gold miner we hold in the ETF, but we also have exposure to other commodities like Freeport-McMoRan, which produces copper. Gold just hit a record high — I believe around US$4,000 an ounce — and investors such as Ray Dalio have said it’s smart to hold gold in this environment. If we move into a rate-cutting cycle, gold and similar inflation-hedging assets could make a lot of sense for investors.

ANDREW: We’ll have to leave it there. Doug, thank you very much. I guess before too long, we’ll be interviewing the model itself. Thanks again.

DOUG: Thanks, Andrew.

ANDREW: Doug Clinton, founder and CEO of Intelligent Alpha.

---

This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Oct. 7, 2025 interview with Doug Clinton are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.