{"slug": "which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the", "title": "Which AI model is the best stock trader? A finance professor says he's got the answer.", "summary": "A finance professor's AI-managed stock portfolios show DeepSeek is the best trader, with its portfolio up 73% since launch in 2023 and 35% year-to-date, beating ChatGPT (up 78% since launch but only 16% year-to-date) and Grok (up 54% since inception and 19% year-to-date), according to Dr. Alejandro Lopez-Lira, an associate professor of finance at the University of Florida.", "body_md": "# Which AI model is the best stock trader? A finance professor says he's got the answer.\n\n[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com)\n\nDr. Alejandro Lopez-Lira has been conducting his AI trading experiment since the beginning of the AI boom in 2023. He says one model stands out.\n\n- A finance professor has been testing AI bots' stock-trading abilities since 2023.\n- His AI-managed portfolios show a clear winner when it comes to beating the S&P 500.\n[DeepSeek](/compare/llama-4-vs-deepseek-r1)has beaten the other chatbots when it comes to year to date returns.\n\nDr. Alejandro Lopez Lira has been trying to prompt AI chatbots to beat the market since 2023.\n\nLopez Lira, an associate professor of finance at the University of Florida, began his project early in the AI boom to see which model could trade stocks to deliver market-beating returns. After almost three years of testing the most popular models, he said he's got his answer.\n\n\"DeepSeek is by far the best trader,\" he told Business Insider.\n\nDeepSeek's portfolio is up 73% since it launched in 2023 and 35% year-to-date. [ChatGPT](/compare/chatgpt-vs-claude) has slightly outpaced DeepSeek since launch, up 78%, but is only up 16% year-to-date. The [Grok](/compare/mistral-large-vs-grok-2) portfolio has returned 54% since inception and 19% year-to-date.\n\nHe said DeepSeek is also beating [Claude](/glossary/claude), though he noted that [Anthropic](/glossary/anthropic)'s chat bot hasn't been managing a portfolio for as long as the others.\n\nAll of his AI-managed portfolios can be publicly viewed on Autopilot, an app that allows retail traders to copy moves made by successful investors, from Warren Buffett to Nancy Pelosi investors. Copy trading has [become popular](https://www.businessinsider.com/copy-trading-investing-nancy-pelosi-donald-trump-nvda-amzn-goog-2026-2) in recent years, and, according to Autopilot co-founder Chris Josephs, there has been increasing interest among users in copying trades made by AI-run stock portfolios.\n\n\"What's fascinating is we see people apply and want to launch more and more funds, launch more and more portfolios, and more people are using AI to essentially prompt out their ideas,\" he told Business Insider.\n\nLopez Lira said that while each AI model functions similarly in terms of information processing, he estimated that they only make the same calls about 50% of the time.\n\n\"There's some setup involved in the sense that you have to add the latest information to the model — firm news, various fundamentals, things like that — but the final decision is the model's completely.\"\n\nIn a [GPT](/glossary/gpt) portfolio white paper shared on his Autopilot page, Lopez Lira [provided examples](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PJBbljXbfVzIymgPMjPwDeVNaboWfwmD5Vq4Mo-5_qM/mobilebasic#heading=h.tun4oq6m688g) of some of the prompts he's used in setting up the portfolio.\n\nThe platform also shows lists of recent trades each AI portfolio has made. Most recently, it shows 19 trades made by DeepSeek on July 14, including increasing its position in [Nvidia](https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/nvda-stock) and reducing its Vista Energy holdings.\n\nWhile [Micron Technology](https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/mu-stock) is the top holding for both DeepSeek and Grok's portfolios, the second-highest performing portfolio, ChatGPT, favors [Kratos Defense & Security Solutions](https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/ktos-stock), a lesser known aerospace recently [named ](https://www.businessinsider.com/top-space-stocks-to-buy-spacex-rocket-lab-kratos-stifel-2026-7)as a top pick by Stifel.\n\nWhile the Claude portfolio also holds Kratos stock, its top holding is the iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF, a stark contrast to the other bot's preferences for Big Tech and energy stocks. It also maintains a fairly large position in Vista Energy, a contrarian position relative to DeepSeek's move to reduce its position.\n\n[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ai-for-trading-stocks-deepseek-claude-chatgpt-grok-2026-7)\n\nGet AI news in your inbox\n\nDaily digest of what matters in AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-rbu2", "published_at": "2026-07-25 09:15:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-25 10:57:31.916977+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["DeepSeek", "ChatGPT", "Grok", "Claude", "Anthropic", "Alejandro Lopez-Lira", "University of Florida", "Autopilot"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/which-ai-model-is-the-best-stock-trader-a-finance-professor-says-he-s-got-the.jsonld"}}