A month ago, Wall Street was arguing about how many times the Federal Reserve would cut rates before year-end. Then Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole speech to say the central bank still has "work to do" on inflation, and prediction markets flipped almost overnight — from pricing roughly 70% odds the Fed would hold steady in September to pricing a 48% chance it hikes instead. That's the backdrop for the best stocks to buy in September 2026: a market near record highs, earnings still growing fast, and a Fed that just got a lot less predictable.
The rule below is the same one every month: real numbers over vibes. What a company earns, what it's growing at, what you're paying for that growth, and what the risk actually is if the story breaks. Some of these are cheap for a reason. A few are expensive for a reason too. Both get said out loud.
What the Market Looks Like Right Now
The S&P 500 closed July at 7,489, near a record high, after climbing through most of the summer. That's priced on real earnings growth — analysts had penciled in 27.4% year-over-year S&P 500 earnings growth for the current quarter and roughly 30% for all of 2026 — but growth is expected to slow to a more normal 13.6% in 2027. That deceleration matters more than it sounds: a lot of today's prices assume 2026-level growth just keeps showing up.
Layer the Fed uncertainty on top of that and September looks less like a straight line up and more like a market that could swing hard on a single speech or a single inflation print. That's not a reason to sit out. It's a reason to size positions like the next few weeks could get bumpy, because they plausibly will.
AI Infrastructure Stocks Still Worth a Look
Broadcom (AVGO) — reports fiscal third-quarter earnings on September 8, the single biggest event on this list. The company's market cap sat near $1.7 trillion in late August, and the average Wall Street price target of roughly $526 implies about 46% upside from recent levels, largely on AI chip revenue that's been growing over 200% a year. That much optimism is already priced in, though, which is exactly why the earnings date is a real risk and not just a formality — a miss here would land hard.
Micron (MU) — just posted the loudest number on this list: fiscal third-quarter revenue of $41.46 billion, a record, up from $9.3 billion a year earlier and $23.86 billion the quarter before. An AI-driven memory shortage sent chip prices vertical, and the stock jumped 15% in after-hours trading the night it reported. The catch is that memory has boomed and busted this hard before — the market pricing Micron at a relatively low earnings multiple despite that growth is the market saying it doesn't fully believe the number repeats.
Jabil (JBL) — builds the servers and infrastructure that AI data centers actually run on, and it trades at a forward P/E near 18, about 14% below the hardware industry's median of roughly 21. Contract manufacturing is a lower-margin business than designing the chips themselves, which is exactly why it's priced cheaper; Jabil's results ride on how much its handful of large customers keep spending.
Eaton (ETN) — makes the electrical distribution and power management equipment every data center needs before a single chip turns on. The average analyst target sits near $462 across 33 analysts, about 20% above recent prices, and both Morgan Stanley and Evercore ISI have raised their targets above $500 in recent weeks. That string of upgrades is itself worth noting: a lot of the good news here is already known and already priced.
Undervalued Stocks to Buy Now for September
Diamondback Energy (FANG) — up about 28% over the past six months and trading near $176, putting it at a P/E of roughly 12, less than half the S&P 500's trailing multiple near 30. The tradeoff is that Diamondback's earnings move with the price of oil, which nobody — including Diamondback — controls.
Occidental Petroleum (OXY) — one of Berkshire Hathaway's largest energy holdings, trading at a forward P/E in the high teens. Like Diamondback, it's less a company-specific bet than a bet that crude stays supportive through the back half of the year.
The Cigna Group (CI) — trades at a forward P/E near 9.5, versus its own 12x historical average — a real discount, not a manufactured one. Health insurers have lagged the broader market for a while, and reimbursement and regulatory policy is the reason; that risk doesn't disappear just because the stock looks cheap.
Wynn Resorts (WYNN) — down about 18% in 2026 and trading near $102, but Wall Street has gotten more bullish on it, not less, with an average price target near $133.60 — about 30% higher. Casino and resort spending is discretionary, though, and the stock will feel it fast if consumers or Asia travel demand pull back.
Two Stocks That Diversify the List
MercadoLibre (MELI) — often called the Amazon of Latin America, dominates e-commerce and digital payments across Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. It's the priciest name on this list at a forward P/E near 45, which only works if growth stays this fast for years — a bet on the region as much as the company.
WM (Waste Management) — is the opposite kind of stock entirely. The company just raised its dividend to $3.78 a share for 2026, its 23rd consecutive annual increase, for a yield near 1.66%. Nobody buys WM to double their money in a year. You buy it because trash collection doesn't care what the Fed does, and a portfolio full of AI bets can use one holding that behaves like that.
What to Actually Do With a List Like This
Ten stocks isn't ten independent bets, especially this month. Four of the names above — Broadcom, Micron, Jabil, and Eaton — are versions of the same AI infrastructure trade with different risk profiles. Buy equal amounts of all ten and nearly half your money is really one position moving together on AI-related news. That's worth knowing going in, not discovering the first time AI spending headlines turn negative.
If you're newer to investing and still working out which stocks to buy this month, the two things that matter more than the picks themselves are position size and timing. Keep any single stock to a fixed percentage of what you invest — 3% or 5%, whatever you choose — and stick to it even for the one you're most excited about; the name you've read the most about has a way of quietly becoming the biggest position by accident. On timing, nobody needs to guess whether September opens with a rally or a selloff. Splitting a $3,000 purchase into three $1,000 buys over three months, the way our guide to dollar-cost averaging the S&P 500 lays out, means a rough month costs a third as much as it would in one lump sum.
It also helps to write down, before you buy, what would change your mind: memory prices rolling over at Micron, AI capex actually slowing at Eaton, a bad print from Broadcom on September 8. Deciding that in advance is a lot easier than deciding it after you're down 20% and every incentive is to wait one more quarter. For a broader sense of how much of a first portfolio should sit in individual stocks like these versus something steadier, last month's list walks through the same tradeoff in more detail.
None of this is personalized to you, and it isn't meant to be — nobody writing a monthly stock list knows your timeline, your tax situation, or how you'd actually feel watching one of these drop 20% in a bad week. These are ten companies whose numbers held up under a real look in late August 2026. Whether any of them belong in your account is a separate question, and it's yours to answer.
Valuation and price-target data from company filings, analyst consensus aggregators, and market data providers, as of late August 2026. Prices and targets move — check current numbers before acting on anything here.