AI companies so far: mixed, with a few leaders and a weak broad baseline

MixedAI-adjacent names beat a weak July market, but the list is noisy and not a clean AI-only universe

Liquid US market, July 2026

-2.1%

equal-weighted baseline, close ≥ $3 and close×volume ≥ $1m

Top name in the AI-adjacent screen

+97.1%

LVLU, but this is clearly not an AI company

Next-month return model out-of-sample

IC +0.012

197 months tested; weak but positive ranking signal

Model hit rate

59.4%

top-ranked names beat lower-ranked names more often than not

Symbol	Company	Industry	July return
LVLU	Lulu's Fashion Lounge Holdings, Inc.	Apparel - Retail	+97.1%
SNAL	Snail, Inc. Class A Common Stock	Electronic Gaming & Multimedia	+52.9%
SKIL	Skillsoft Corp.	Education & Training Services	+37.1%
ATAI	Atai Beckley Inc.	Biotechnology	+36.2%
DINO	HF Sinclair Corporation	Oil & Gas Refining & Marketing	+31.3%
KLC	KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc.	Education & Training Services	+25.9%
MCS	The Marcus Corporation	Entertainment	+24.0%
FIVE	Five Below, Inc.	Specialty Retail	+20.8%
KRT	Karat Packaging Inc.	Packaging & Containers	+20.3%
ROST	Ross Stores, Inc.	Apparel - Retail	+18.0%

Verdict: I couldn’t cleanly isolate an AI-only industry from the available classifications, so I used an AI-adjacent name screen and a liquid-market baseline. That screen is noisy and includes clear false positives, so treat it as a rough proxy, not a definitive AI basket.

Model used: return_1m for the current next-month ranking. Out-of-sample performance: rank IC +0.012 over 197 months, with 59.4% hit rate. Caveat: the model ranks relative returns, not market direction, and the universe is survivorship-biased current listings.

Comments