Key points
- DeepSeek still leads at $11,180.79 and the leaderboard was unchanged.
- Every stock three or more models own fell this week.
- Claude held all five and was the only model that gained.
Eleven of the 17 stocks in our AI contest went up this week. Five of the six AI models still lost money. Almost every stock that rose was one a single model owned, and by Saturday night two models had sold the most popular stock in the contest.
If you're new here: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI each got $10,000 in fake money. Five AI stocks apiece, nothing over $10 billion, one chance to change picks every Saturday. We rank them by how much money is left. Six portfolios of five is 30 slots, and this week those slots held 17 different companies. The full rules are here.
All prices are the last trade before 8 p.m. Eastern on Friday, September 11. Monday was Labor Day, so the market opened only four days.
| Model | Account value | Total return | This week |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | $11,180.79 | +11.81% | -1.44% |
| Gemini | $10,716.08 | +7.16% | -1.47% |
| Grok | $10,409.64 | +4.10% | -2.03% |
| ChatGPT | $9,899.28 | -1.01% | -1.71% |
| Claude | $9,412.98 | -5.87% | +1.52% |
| Meta AI | $9,016.34 | -9.84% | -1.37% |
Account values at the September 11, 2026 settle.
Nobody moved in the standings all week. ChatGPT finished below its starting $10,000 for the first time, so three of the six are now under water.
The more models owned a stock, the worse it did
Here's the part I didn't expect. Line the 17 stocks up by how many models own them.
| Stock | Models holding it | Sept 11 | This week |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | 5 | $6.27 | -6.97% |
| BigBear.ai (BBAI) | 4 | $2.88 | -1.38% |
| Innodata (INOD) | 3 | $53.78 | -3.27% |
| Ambarella (AMBA) | 2 | $67.72 | +7.00% |
| Applied Digital (APLD) | 2 | $26.46 | +0.49% |
| Rigetti Computing (RGTI) | 2 | $15.26 | +0.33% |
| C3.ai (AI) | 2 | $10.50 | +0.29% |
Week change is September 4 to September 11, 2026. The other ten stocks have a single owner each; six rose, four fell.
Every stock owned by three or more models fell. Every stock owned by exactly two rose. The ten with a single owner were a coin flip.
SoundHound matters most. Five of the six bought it in week one and five still owned it going in. It fell four days out of four, on no company news.
No contest company reported earnings, so the week came down to rates. Friday's inflation report ran hot and CME's FedWatch tool put the odds of a September 16 rate hike at 86.3%. Going by the main sector funds, software stocks fell 2.9% on the week while chip stocks rose 0.3%.
Claude held everything again
Third week running with no trades, from fifth place, and it was the only model that made money. Kulicke and Soffa (KLIC) rose 5.99%, Ambarella 7.00% and Rambus (RMBS) 2.32%, adding $299.88, while UiPath (PATH) gave back $163.47. That left Claude up $141.38. Argan (AGX) supplied the only company news, dropping 7.93% on a bearish Piper Sandler initiation Wednesday morning and raising its dividend 40% that same afternoon.
UiPath is the one I'd want explained: down another 9.49%, 15.38% below what Claude paid, the contest's worst performer two weeks running. Claude's case for holding is that no bad news came out about the business, Citigroup started covering it with a buy rating on Tuesday, and the whole software group was falling with it. It also says it looked for a replacement and found nothing, fourth week straight. Everything eligible is another chip stock, another contractor, or a company losing money.
Then two models sold SoundHound
The other models sent their picks in after I'd written that, and this part I'd have bet against.
ChatGPT sold SoundHound at $6.27 for a small gain and put all of it into Aeva Technologies (AEVA), a lidar company, at $15.44. Meta AI sold at the same price for a 14.34% loss, dropped Ambarella, and split the money between C3.ai at $10.50 and Applied Digital at $26.46.
That drops SoundHound from five owners to three, its first time in fewer than five portfolios since week one. Two models made that decision the same day, in separate chats, from a prompt that never mentions crowding.
One thing I won't let slide. Meta AI said it was buying C3.ai "at 52-week lows." It wasn't: the stock closed at $10.50, nowhere near its $7.675 low from March. The pick is legal. The reason is wrong.
DeepSeek got rejected, then finally traded
Second week running that DeepSeek had a pick thrown out. It wanted to sell C3.ai and buy Guardforce AI (GFAI), calling it "a sub-$1 share price that fits the contest's small-cap mandate." That is the problem, not the selling point.
- Share price $0.37, against a $2 minimum.
- About $75,000 traded a day, against a $5 million minimum.
- Nasdaq lists it as out of compliance.
- Market cap $11.50 million, against the $11.33 million DeepSeek reported. That one it got right.
The market cap is the number these models normally get wrong. This time it misread the rule, not the data.
I gave it another shot and the second pick is fine. DeepSeek sold C3.ai at $10.50 and put all $2,576.78 into Rezolve AI (RZLV) at $2.30. It called that company $2.1 billion when it was $957 million on Friday, but both are well under the limit.
This is DeepSeek's first completed trade of the entire contest, eight weeks in, from first place. It sold its biggest and best-performing stock, up 28.84%, for a money-losing British company trading 73% below its own high. Grok is now the only model that has never traded.
Shares and values are rounded; account totals use full precision. Anything bought this Saturday is priced at its entry, so it shows no change yet.
DeepSeek, $11,180.79
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RZLV | 1,120.83 | $2.30 | $2.30 | $2,576.78 |
| PDYN | 404.86 | $4.94 | $5.75 | $2,329.76 |
| RGTI | 141.14 | $14.17 | $15.26 | $2,153.85 |
| BBAI | 723.33 | $2.77 | $2.88 | $2,083.04 |
| SOUN | 324.94 | $6.16 | $6.27 | $2,037.37 |
DeepSeek has led for four straight weeks.
Gemini, $10,716.08
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI | 342.81 | $9.13 | $10.50 | $3,599.46 |
| OUST | 82.19 | $38.08 | $35.40 | $2,909.61 |
| APLD | 76.94 | $27.12 | $26.46 | $2,035.81 |
| BBAI | 380.53 | $2.74 | $2.88 | $1,095.85 |
| SOUN | 171.51 | $6.08 | $6.27 | $1,075.35 |
C3.ai is 33.6% of Gemini's account, the biggest position in the contest.
Grok, $10,409.64
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AEHR | 26.21 | $76.30 | $95.00 | $2,490.17 |
| BBAI | 723.33 | $2.77 | $2.88 | $2,083.04 |
| SOUN | 324.94 | $6.16 | $6.27 | $2,037.37 |
| INOD | 35.77 | $55.91 | $53.78 | $1,923.81 |
| SERV | 415.80 | $4.81 | $4.51 | $1,875.26 |
ChatGPT, $9,899.28
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RGTI | 141.14 | $14.17 | $15.26 | $2,153.85 |
| AEVA | 131.95 | $15.44 | $15.44 | $2,037.37 |
| CAMT | 13.53 | $147.85 | $147.90 | $2,000.68 |
| INOD | 35.77 | $55.91 | $53.78 | $1,923.81 |
| APLD | 67.41 | $25.52 | $26.46 | $1,783.58 |
Claude, $9,412.98
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RMBS | 26.95 | $91.48 | $86.97 | $2,343.91 |
| KLIC | 23.87 | $89.26 | $86.50 | $2,065.07 |
| AMBA | 29.38 | $68.07 | $67.72 | $1,989.72 |
| PATH | 113.36 | $16.26 | $13.76 | $1,559.84 |
| AGX | 3.52 | $568.93 | $413.74 | $1,454.45 |
All five are still below what Claude paid, Argan worst at -27.28%.
Meta AI, $9,016.34
| Ticker | Shares | Entry | Sept 11 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PENG | 37.46 | $49.30 | $51.00 | $1,910.68 |
| AI | 170.61 | $10.50 | $10.50 | $1,791.37 |
| APLD | 67.70 | $26.46 | $26.46 | $1,791.37 |
| INOD | 33.19 | $55.60 | $53.78 | $1,784.70 |
| BBAI | 603.59 | $3.06 | $2.88 | $1,738.22 |
Saturday's trades took those 30 slots from 17 different companies to 19, and for the first time no stock sits in five of the six portfolios.
One week doesn't prove crowding costs you money. But the week these six finally spread apart, winners and losers sorted almost perfectly by how many owned each stock, and two quit the most popular name on the board. Last week's edition is here, and the running scoreboard is on the tracker.
