Markets are entering Wednesday's Federal Reserve decision with expectations tilted toward a rate increase - futures pricing currently places the probability of a 25-basis-point move as high as 90% after recent data showed a 5.4% jump in August producer prices and a payrolls increase of 162,000. The 10-year Treasury yield has risen to about 5%, its highest level since October 2023, setting the stage for new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first major policy test.
Amid that macro backdrop, algorithmic strategies maintained by Investing.com and offered to InvestingPro subscribers through ProPicks AI continue to uncover outperformers beneath the broader market noise. One consistent performer is the Mid-Cap Movers model, which each month identifies the 20 most promising mid-cap companies with market capitalizations between $2 billion and $10 billion, according to the strategy's methodology description.
Since the strategy began being tracked in 2013, its selections have delivered a cumulative return of 580.7%, compared with 207.4% for the S&P MidCap 400 - a margin of excess return exceeding 370 percentage points and an annualized rate of about 17.3%.
Performance in the early part of September has remained resilient. Over the September 1-15 window the strategy's equal-weighted basket rose 0.24% while the S&P MidCap 400 declined 1.12%, producing 1.36 percentage points of alpha. Eleven of the strategy's 20 holdings were positive over that span.
Leading the portfolio in the month-to-date was Commvault (NASDAQ:CVLT), which gained 8.5%, followed by Insight Enterprises (NASDAQ:NSIT) at +5.0% and Wingstop (NYSE:WING) at +4.7%. On the other side, Bausch Health (NYSE:BHC) fell 8.5%, Loma Negra (NYSE:LOMA) dropped 4.6% and Axcelis (NASDAQ:ACLS) declined 4.3%.
The mid-cap segment is notable for typically carrying more floating-rate debt than large-cap peers, a structural characteristic that makes mid-caps particularly sensitive to changes in policy rates and a key area to watch when the Fed's decision is announced.
Two other names held in Investing.com's AI strategies recorded fresh, dated developments this week. Lennox International (NYSE:LII), included in the Top Value Stocks (US20) strategy, was downgraded by Deutsche Bank from Buy to Hold on Monday, September 14, with a new $444 price target. Lennox is down 3.1% this month and trading near a 52-week low around $366, while the consensus Street target averaging $532.92 (compiled from 5 Buy, 10 Hold and 2 Sell ratings) continues to imply significant upside from current levels.
Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), which is the worst-performing holding this month in the Dominate the Dow strategy at -12.9% following a clinical trial setback for Novartis' pelacarsen and an earlier BMO downgrade, received a regulatory update on September 14. The FDA approved a reduced monitoring time for the first two doses of Amgen's lung-cancer drug Imdelltra (tarlatamab), easing some administrative burden for prescribers even as the broader selloff in the stock persists.
Across the eleven U.S. strategies under review for this cycle, Tech Titans is the top performer relative to its benchmark, beating the S&P 500 by 4.09 percentage points this month. It is followed by Healthcare Heroes (+3.04), Beat the S&P 500 (+2.36), Energy Elite (+2.15), Small-Cap Sprinters (+1.95) and Mid-Cap Movers (+1.36). Dominate the Dow is essentially flat (-0.02) while Best of Buffett trails modestly (-0.63).
Financial Fortresses is the most notable laggard, underperforming its benchmark by 2.29 percentage points this month. That underperformance stems more from individual stock moves than from a sector-wide reaction to the prospect of higher rates, with FactSet (FDS) down 9.3% amid investor concerns about AI-related disruption for financial-data providers, TPG off 8.5% and Cboe Global declining 7.5%, together outweighing any potential rate-related tailwind for lenders.
InvestingPro members can access the full set of AI-driven picks for September. The data referenced in this report are current as of September 15, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Data as of September 15, 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.