+52%, +39%, +22%: Our AI just called these blue-chip breakouts

Investing.com - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 52,361.52 on Monday, up 0.28%, with the S&P 500 at 7,676.80 and the Nasdaq Composite at 26,169.38. It is a deceptively calm setup for a week that could reprice the whole index.

The Federal Reserve announces its decision Wednesday, with its target range at 3.75% to 4.00% and markets implying only around a 10% chance of a hike, according to Kyle Rodda of Capital.com, speaking to TheStreet. Hours later, the largest company in the Dow reports earnings. Blue chips are not supposed to be where the action is - and yet three of them have quietly done the heavy lifting in one of our best-performing portfolios this year.

Investing.com’s Dominate the Dow strategy, part of ProPicks AI, analyzes all 30 blue-chip stocks to pinpoint the 10 strongest each month for market-beating returns. It has returned 19.93% in 2026 against 11.07 percentage points of excess return over the Dow itself, and 70.67% since its October 2023 launch. These are the three positions carrying it.

Salesforce: +51.96% since entry

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) entered the portfolio on July 1 at $162.94 and closed Monday at $247.61 - a gain of 51.96%, the largest since-entry position in the book.

The entry thesis was margin expansion that the market had not yet priced. It has arrived: revenue of $43.94 billion over the trailing twelve months is up 11.2%, but net income of $9.66 billion is up 45.0% and earnings per share of $10.79 are up 56.8%. The stock trades at 22.95 times trailing earnings and 16.88 times forward.

The live catalyst is the $5.66 billion acquisition of Braze, announced Oct. 20, which DA Davidson cited in raising its target to $250 from $225 on Oct. 21, valuing the business at 16 times FY28 earnings. Analysts see the fit with Data 360 and Customer 360, and a lift for Salesforce’s struggling Marketing and Commerce segment.

The bear case: the price drew scrutiny. Piper Sandler’s Billy Fitzsimmons noted the deal values Braze at roughly 5.7 times next-twelve-month enterprise value to sales - about 60% above Braze’s own two-year average of 3.6 times, and above the 5.0 times median software-acquisition multiple since 2025. BTIG, Wells Fargo and Oppenheimer all stepped back from Braze on Oct. 20-21. DA Davidson flagged integration risk explicitly and held its rating at Neutral. Consensus remains Buy across 56 analysts with an average target of $287.08, roughly 16% above Monday’s close, but the stock still sits about 8% below its 52-week high of $269.11.

Microsoft: +38.86% since entry, and it reports Wednesday

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) entered the same day, July 1, at $383.56. It closed Monday at $532.60 - up 38.86%.

Fiscal Q1 2027 results land Wednesday after the close, with the call at 2:30 p.m. PT. Guidance points to Intelligent Cloud revenue of $40.95-41.25 billion and Productivity and Business Processes of $36.7-37.0 billion, with Azure growth guided to roughly 45% in constant currency against 43% in the prior quarter - an acceleration, not a fade. The most striking monetization figure from the last report was paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats passing 30 million, up from 20 million a quarter earlier.

The bear case: the spending. Capital expenditure is guided above $50 billion in a single quarter. Note carefully that the reduction in the calendar-2026 capex figure to roughly $175 billion from $190 billion reflects a lease-accounting reclassification rather than a spending cut - it is not the discipline some headlines implied. Microsoft Cloud gross margin was guided down toward 64% from 72% as of the company’s July commentary. Wednesday’s print, arriving the same afternoon as the Fed, is the test.

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Apple: +21.81% since entry

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) entered on Dec. 1, 2025 at $282.33 and closed Monday at $343.91, up 21.81%. During October it briefly overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company, with both near $5.1 trillion.

Results come Monday, Nov. 2 - not this week, despite several calendars listing Oct. 29. The unmodelled piece is the paid Siri tier: Apple’s own support documentation says expanded access “will be available for a fee,” tied to the 2027 software releases. It is unpriced, absent in the EU, and therefore in almost nobody’s estimates.

The bear case: Loop Capital downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy on Oct. 20, cutting its target to $330 from $370 - below Monday’s close - citing a roughly 10% trim to planned September and December iPhone shipments.

The rest of the book

Dominate the Dow returned 4.81% in October against 2.82% for the Dow, beating its benchmark by 1.99 points on the month. Beyond the three above, Amgen has been the standout, up 9.17% in October and 65.62% since it entered the portfolio in December 2024.

Across our US strategies, the excess returns over benchmarks in 2026 currently read: Mid-Cap Movers +36.44 points, Energy Elite +31.11, Small-Cap Sprinters +22.24, Dominate the Dow +11.07 and Healthcare Heroes +7.20. The common thread into Wednesday is that the AI-capex trade now has to clear an earnings bar and a Fed decision on the same afternoon.

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Every figure in this article - entry prices, since-entry returns, monthly rebalancing and benchmark excess returns - comes from ProPicks AI, available inside InvestingPro. For a limited window it is up to 55% off, at less than $8 a month, alongside Fair Value estimates, financial health scores and the WarrenAI research assistant.

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At the beginning of each month, our proprietary AI system evaluates thousands of global equities using a complex blend of historical data, valuation signals, and forward-looking growth metrics.

By processing more than 15 years of financial data across more than 150 quantitative models, the engine identifies up to 20 high-conviction stocks per strategy based on their projected medium-term upside potential.

Every month, these strategies undergo a strict rebalancing process. New opportunities are added, strong performers are retained, and stocks that no longer meet the criteria are removed.

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*Live performance is recorded since our official launch of the Beat the S&P 500 strategy in October 2023.

Subscription prices mentioned in articles are accurate at the time of publication. We regularly test different offers for our members, which may vary by region.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. Prices are accurate at the time of publication and may vary by region.

Data as of: Monday, Oct. 26, 2026 close. US markets were closed at the time of writing; all holding and portfolio figures are from that session.