Remember when AI stocks were basically printing money? Yeah, those days are getting weird. The momentum’s cracking, the chips are stumbling, and suddenly everyone’s asking: “So… what now?”
Goldman Sachs has an answer, and it’s refreshingly unglamorous. Ben Snider and his team just dropped a note saying the real opportunity isn’t chasing the next AI darling—it’s looking at three totally different plays that Wall Street’s been sleeping on.
Here’s the thing: the AI trade carried the whole market in 2026, but lately it’s been like watching a sugar rush crash. Memory stocks tanked, competition from China is heating up, and everyone’s suddenly worried about whether all that AI capex actually makes money. The momentum factor—basically the stocks that went up the most—is now seeing the sharpest pullbacks. It’s a classic reversal, and it’s brutal.
But this is where it gets interesting. While everyone’s panicking about AI, the equal-weight S&P 500 is quietly hitting new highs. Correlations between stocks have dropped to their lowest level in decades. Translation: the market’s fragmenting, and that means opportunity for people paying attention.
Goldman’s flagging three categories worth your attention:
First: Consumer Experience Stocks. Think casinos, cruise lines, hotels, resorts—basically anywhere people spend money on experiences rather than stuff. These have strong secular growth tailwinds, reasonable valuations, and here’s the kicker: minimal AI disruption risk. Nobody’s replacing a Vegas weekend with a chatbot. Goldman’s consumer experience basket has been crushing it, and it’s still got room to run.
Second: Compounders. These are the boring-but-brilliant companies with strong earnings growth, solid returns on capital, and fat free cash flow. They’ve been lagging lately, which means they’re trading at historically cheap valuations. It’s the classic “good companies, bad timing” setup. These are the kinds of stocks that quietly make you rich over five years while you’re not paying attention.
Third: M&A Targets. There’s been a surge in acquisition activity, but here’s the weird part—most potential targets still aren’t priced for it. Goldman’s analysts have identified a basket of companies that could be acquisition targets, and they’ve already outperformed the broader market by 8 percentage points since Q1. But valuations don’t reflect the actual probability of a deal. That’s a gap waiting to close.
The broader point? The market’s rotating hard right now. The stocks that were on fire are cooling down, and that’s creating pockets of value for people willing to look beyond the AI hype machine. It’s not sexy. It’s not going to get you on CNBC. But it might actually make you money.
Goldman’s basically saying: if you’re tired of the AI volatility, there’s a whole market out there that’s been ignored. And sometimes, that’s exactly where the smart money goes.
