Reddit’s Top 30 Stock Picks for 2026

In the last five years, the landscape of retail investing has undergone a big ol’ shift. What used to be discussed in country clubs or behind the paywalls of expensive Bloomberg terminals is now dissected, memed, and debated on digital websites like Reddit. Subreddits like r/wallstreetbets, r/stocks, and r/investing have become significant market movers, capable of driving billions of dollars in volume into single-ticker symbols.

This article strives to provide a list of the top 30 stocks currently being recommended and discussed across these major subreddits as potential outperformers in 2026. Based on a data-driven scrape of thousands of comments and dozens of posts from late December 2025, we have identified the Reddit Portfolio.

Why Reddit as a gauge of recommendations? Well based on analysis of similar posts for 2025, Redditors outperformed the market significantly with returns in the 40%-75% range depending on the subreddit against the S&P 500 return of 18% in the same timeframe. 2024 was no different with r/stocks yielding returns of 87.6% since 2024 for the top 10 most recommended stocks and 131.5% for the top 20 most recommended stocks. That’s against 46% for the S&P 500 in the same timeframe. You can see more information about that here.

Those results are impressive but one must remember that these are high-beta, high-volatility plays that often involve chasing momentum and that’s no different this year with the recommendations for 2026 returning 109%-122% in 2025 depending on whether you look at top 10, top 20 or top 30. That means that you’re buying many of these stocks after a pretty significant run-up prior to that purchase.

As such, this data is not investment advice; it is an analytical look at retail sentiment and the extreme price swings that define the current market cycle.

Methodology: How I Extracted the Signal from the Noise

Analyzing Reddit is not as simple as counting ticker mentions. The platform is prone to botting, pump and dump schemes, and repetitive posting by single-minded enthusiasts. To provide an accurate picture, our analysis employed a multi-step filtration process:

1. Cross-Subreddit Aggregation: I took posts three distinct tiers of investors: the high-risk speculators of r/wallstreetbets, the growth-oriented researchers of r/stocks, and the long-term fundamentalists of r/investing.
2. Unique User Validation: To prevent spamming from skewing the results, I adjusted mentions to remove multiple comments from the same username within the dataset. This ensures that a stock is popular because many people like it, not because one person is yelling about it.
3. Focus: The data analyzed specifically covers the window of December 23, 2025, to December 30, 2025, capturing the year-ahead sentiment for 2026 and only looked at posts that had a certain threshold of upvotes to focus on posts that had high community engagement.

The Reddit Top 30: Sentiment and Performance Data

Below is the comprehensive list of the top 30 stocks identified in our analysis, including their current price, 52-week range, and Year-To-Date (YTD) performance for 2025 as of 12/26/2025.

Deep Dive: The Top 10 Reddit Recommendations

1. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (RKLB)

Rocket Lab has claimed the throne as Reddit’s favorite stock. With a 183.65% YTD gain, it has become the poster child for the space economy. Redditors have shifted their focus from Virgin Galactic to RKLB due to its consistent launch cadence and the development of the Neutron rocket.

• Performance Swing: The stock is a classic high-beta example, having risen from a 52-week low of $14.72 to over $70. This nearly 5x move makes it prone to massive profit-taking corrections. It’s also a company that is priced at a near 50x multiple to forward sales. However, with SpaceX potentially IPO’ing at a $1.5T valuations, investors may look at this and say that the $37B market cap valuation has a lot of legs if they can become the #2 player in this space.

2. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS)

ASTS is the definitive conviction play of r/wallstreetbets. Its performance (+241.17%) reflects the successful deployment of its BlueWalker satellites. Investors are betting on the direct-to-cell market, but with the stock having swung from $17 to over $70, the FOMO risk is certainly there.

3. Amazon, Inc. (AMZN)

Amazon remains the safe haven for various subreddit members. While its 5% YTD growth is modest compared to the speculative space stocks, it is praised for its AWS cloud dominance and improving margins in retail. It serves as the anchor in many Reddit-inspired portfolios with the lagging performance being taken as a sign of room to grow.

4. Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS)

Nebius Group represents yet another volatile entry in the top 10. Having surged 176.83% YTD, it is a high-conviction play for those looking at AI infrastructure outside of the Magnificent Seven.

• The Swing Factor: Note the extreme volatility here: a 52-week low of $18.31 compared to a high of $141.10. Those who bought at the peak are currently down nearly 40%, illustrating the danger of chasing these momentum stocks.

5. Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)

Google’s 64.89% performance in 2025 has quieted critics who thought it was falling behind in the AI race. Reddit sentiment turned positive as Gemini integrated deeper into the Android and Workspace ecosystems.

6. Reddit, Inc. (RDDT)

Maybe it’s not surprising that Reddit itself is one of the most recommended stocks on Reddit. Since its IPO, the company has leveraged its data for AI training models, which has boosted the stock nearly 40% YTD. The community views it as a bet on the internet’s front page and a quickly growing and already profitable ad business.

7. Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)

Micron’s 229.10% surge is a direct result of the HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) shortage. As AI chips require more memory, Micron has become a pick and shovel play. However, the semiconductor cycle is notoriously boom-and-bust, and MU’s current valuation is heavily pricing in perfect execution.

8. SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SOFI)

SoFi is seemingly a beloved stock on Reddit. After years of trading in the single digits, it broke out in 2025 to $26.43, an 87% gain. The community remains divided between those who see it as the future of banking and those who fear the volatility of its lending business and a heavy reliance on personal loans(although less so than in years past with other businesses growing) which would not do well in a recession.

9. POET Technologies Inc. (POET)

POET is the smallest entry in the top 10. While its YTD growth is a flat 3.4%, the sheer volume of mentions suggests a growing community belief in its optical interposer technology for AI hardware.

10. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

AMD rounds out the top 10 with a solid 79.47% gain. As the primary competitor to Nvidia, AMD is seen by Redditors as the value play in the AI space. Its performance has been steadier than the space stocks but still carries a high beta relative to the broader market.

The Danger of High-Beta Strategies

The average YTD performance of the Top 30 is a staggering 126% as of 12/26/25.  To put that in perspective, the S&P 500 historically returns roughly 10% per year and was up 18% in the same timeframe. When you see returns this high, you must understand the underlying mechanism: Beta.

Beta is a measure of a stock’s volatility in relation to the overall market. A beta of 1.0 means the stock moves with the market. Many of the stocks on this list (like RKLB, ASTS, NBIS, and ONDS) have betas well above 2.0 or 3.0. This means that if the market drops 5%, these stocks could easily drop 15% or 20% in a single day. The same is true of the upside which is why investors who are ok with risk and riding a market that’s constantly rising like them.

The question becomes, when does that rise end and a correction begins. If it’s 2026 then there’s A LOT of risk here.

Case Study: NBIS and RKLB and PL

Look closely at the 52-week ranges:

• NBIS: Low of $18.31 to a High of $141.10.
• RKLB: Low of $14.72 to a High of $79.83.
• PL: Low of 2.79 to a High of 20.99

These stocks have experienced draw-ups of 500% to 700%. While this creates millionaires out of those who bought the bottom, it creates a trap for those entering now. Most retail sentiment peaks after the majority of the gains have already been made. If you are entering RKLB at $70 and have a short term mindset, you are essentially betting that the rocket will never experience a malfunction and the market will not enter a recession.

One example of this are the aforementioned r/stocks picks from 2022. While they have done well if you held until today, their 2022 performance when the market was down was a drop of 47% versus the S&P which was down only 20%.

Let’s say you invest $1000 into this type of portfolio and you get a 75% return year one like the top end of the 2025 portfolio had. That leaves you with $1750. However, the market turns next year and you experience a 47% drawdown taking you down to $928, lower than you started.

Doing the same exercise with the 18% return you got from the S&P 500 takes you to a meager(in relation to reddit’s recommendations) $1180 but next year, you only experience a 20% drawdown like we did in 2022 which takes you to 944.

While the 2022 portfolio eventually recovered and beat out the S&P 500 if you held until today, I do wonder how many people ended up selling during or after the 47% drop and locked in those losses and ended up being worse off than just buying the S&P 500 and staying the course. That’s the hard part with beating the market and why many don’t often do it. A 75% return looks awesome and feels awesome but a 50% drop can wipe that out pretty quickly and feel really really bad.

Sector Trends: Space, AI, and Pre-Revenue Dreams

The 2025 Reddit list shows a clear pivot. In 2021, the focus was on certain subreddits was Meme Stocks (GameStop, AMC). In 2022, it was more big tech. In 2025, the focus has shifted to Industrial Frontierism:

• Space (RKLB, ASTS, LUNR, PL): Four of the top 30 stocks are in the space sector. This is no longer just speculation; it is a belief in a new trillion-dollar industry.
• Energy/AI Infrastructure (NBIS, IREN, APLD, ONDS): As AI consumes more power, Reddit is betting on the companies that provide the physical pipes and electricity. AI is a broader theme with companies like GOOG, MU, NVDA, AMD, META, AVGO and more being dependent on the AI sentiment staying the same for good returns going forward. That’s a sizable concentration risk.
• The Riskier Plays (FNMA, OPEN, TMC): These are high-risk bets on regulatory changes (Fannie Mae, Open) or massive commodities shifts with a bit of a dream attached (The Metals Company) which is not to say that the rest of the portfolio is low risk.

Sentiment is Not a Strategy

The data is clear: Reddit’s top picks for 2025 have outperformed almost every professional hedge fund on the planet and the results for 2024(although with limited data aren’t much different). However, this outperformance is built on a foundation of extreme risk. The Reddit Portfolio is effectively a leveraged bet on the continuation of the AI and Space bull markets. If that happens you might be good to go and returns might still continue bit if sentiments shift and we move into a market correction, don’t be surprised if we see a repeat of 2022.

For the average investor, this list should serve as a Sentiment Heatmap, not a shopping list. It shows where the hot retail money is flowing and a lot of it is just chasing performance. If you decide to follow these trends, you must be prepared for the high-beta correction. As we saw with the 52-week highs of NBIS ($141) falling to the current price ($84), the drop can be just as fast as the rise.

Invest with caution, manage your position sizes, and remember: by the time everyone on Reddit is talking about a stock, the easy money has usually already been made. It doesn’t mean that these stocks will be losers long term as Space, AI and tech are likely to be at the forefront of all economies in the coming decades but in the short-term, expect the volatility to be high and questions around whether or not a lot of these stocks are priced for perfection. If you’d like more info you can watch a video here.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. The stocks mentioned are highly volatile and carry a significant risk of loss. Always consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. I am long the top 15 names, META, AVGO and FNMA.