Wall Street has been parsing a stream of AI-infrastructure spending announcements this past week, and one transaction in particular has translated into notable gains inside an AI-driven Strategies book: Qualcomm's newly announced custom-silicon agreement with Amazon Web Services.
The partnership, disclosed on September 8, gives AWS the option to acquire up to $60 billion of Qualcomm's AI data-center chips and related products, and it includes $4 billion in stock warrants that permit Amazon to buy Qualcomm shares at $161.26. The market reacted quickly - Qualcomm shares spiked as much as 6.9% that day to $180.41 - and the move has had follow-through in subsequent sessions.
Within Investing.com's algorithmic Strategies suite, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) has been a holding in the Beat the S&P 500 Strategy for months. That Strategy, which selects 20 stocks from the S&P 500 each month based on an AI refinement process, clipped a clean month-start price of $165.71 on September 1 and reached $180.15 by September 14, an 8.71% increase for the month so far. QCOM also appears as an active holding across four US-focused Strategies on the platform.
Analyst activity tracked in the days after the announcement reflected the bullish sentiment. RBC Capital raised its price target to $180 from $160 on September 9 while maintaining a Sector Perform rating, and Piper Sandler upgraded the stock on September 11 as Qualcomm added another 3.23% to its gains. Those moves pushed the average Wall Street target toward roughly $194. Company commentary cited a $15 billion data-center revenue ambition by 2029 and a 1.6-terabit optical connectivity goal as parts of the buildout, and Qualcomm has also instituted broad price increases across its chip portfolio. Management said the price steps should help protect margins as the Snapdragon X2 Elite platform ramps. Some investors took profits amid dilution worries tied to the Amazon warrant package, but the shares retained most of the post-announcement gains.
Beat the S&P 500's total book has benefited from the same AI-infrastructure tailwind: 12 of its 20 holdings were higher during the month, yielding an equal-weighted average return of about 2.2% versus a roughly flat S&P 500 - a 2.36-point advantage over the index. Other notable performers within the Strategy included Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which rose 9.7%, and Intel, which gained 9.2%. Mettler-Toledo was the relative laggard within the group, down 6.6% for the month.
Across the platform's US Strategy lineup, sector and single-stock catalysts created a mixed performance picture. Healthcare Heroes and Tech Titans topped the leaderboards, producing outperformance of 4.35 and 4.09 points over their respective benchmarks, respectively. Beat the S&P 500 and Small-Cap Sprinters followed with positive edges of 2.36 and 1.49 points. Financial Fortresses remained the laggard, down 2.64 points.
Not all headlines were favorable. Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) emerged as this month's largest single-stock detractor among the Dow-focused Strategies after a trial failure on September 4. Novartis reported that the pelacarsen study did not show a cardiovascular benefit, undermining confidence in the entire Lp(a)-lowering drug class that includes Amgen's olpasiran. Amgen shares plunged as much as 10% on September 8, marking the stock's worst performance for the Dow Strategies on that day, and BMO Capital downgraded AMGN to Market Perform with a $450 target shortly thereafter. The stock had traded near a 52-week high of $447.03 in the days prior to the downgrade. IBM's monthly gain of 7.6%, helped by a JPMorgan upgrade focused on software, helped keep the Dominate the Dow Strategy roughly flat versus its benchmark despite Amgen's drag.
Data cited in this coverage are current as of September 14, 2026. Platform members can retrieve the full list of AI-selected September picks through InvestingPro's member resources. For readers who are not members, subscription options are available through the platform's app and web subscription pages.
Methodology note - Beat the S&P 500 is described by its own materials as a Strategy that is "picked from the S&P 500, refined by AI," scanning the index members monthly to select names the model projects are most likely to outperform over the coming month. The Strategy's equal-weighted monthly return figure referenced above is derived from the performance of the 20 constituent positions tracked on the platform.
Data as of September 14, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.