Arm Holdings surged 3.93% and Oracle advanced 2.84% to lead the AI stock complex on Wednesday, August 26, as a Bank of America price-target raise on ARM and persistent AI cloud backlog demand for Oracle lifted chip design and infrastructure names. Broader markets ended flat - the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each off less than 0.1% - as investors parked risk ahead of NVIDIA's fiscal Q2 print due after the bell, the single most consequential earnings event on the AI calendar this week. The SOXX semiconductor ETF gained 0.26% to $515.40.
Top AI stocks today: August 26, 2026
| Ticker | Close | Day | 1mo | YTD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $ARM | $251.06 | +3.93% | +11.64% | +118.83% |
| $ORCL | $148.87 | +2.84% | +26.44% | -23.93% |
| $PLTR | $177.50 | +2.76% | +44.31% | +5.74% |
| $DELL | $463.82 | +2.73% | +25.48% | +262.93% |
| $NET | $284.89 | +2.63% | +5.37% | +45.34% |
| $SMCI | $37.39 | -2.78% | +45.49% | +20.77% |
| $NVDA | $209.66 | -1.59% | +10.34% | +11.02% |
| $GOOGL | $342.00 | -1.43% | +1.57% | +8.52% |
| $TSLA | $345.82 | -1.26% | +15.92% | -21.06% |
| $NOW | $125.80 | -0.94% | +8.67% | -14.68% |
Arm Holdings surges 3.93% on analyst price-target raise and agentic AI conviction
Arm Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARM) was Wednesday's top gainer among AI chip stocks, closing at $251.06 after Bank of America raised its price target to $335 from $245, keeping a Neutral rating. The bank cited accelerating data-center CPU royalty revenue and ARM's growing role as the default chip architecture for agentic AI inference workloads. StartupHub.ai tracks 52 private AI hardware and inference startups, most still pre-Series B, underscoring how early-stage the private buildout remains that ultimately drives licensing demand for ARM-designed silicon. ARM is now up 118.83% year to date, one of the best AI stocks 2026 has produced in the chip design category.