With 2025 winding down, investor focus is shifting to the 2026 outlook, as markets may reward high-growth companies showing clear operational inflection points rather than broad momentum.
To identify such opportunities, Finbold consulted OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which highlighted two stocks with improving fundamentals, scalable models, and near-term catalysts that offer a plausible path from $100 to $1,000.
Root (NASDAQ: ROOT)
The first pick is auto insurer Root (NASDAQ: ROOT), which has spent much of 2025 reshaping its business around usage-based insurance, telematics, and AI-driven pricing to improve risk selection and pricing accuracy.
These efforts are beginning to show results. Public filings and analyst coverage indicate narrowing loss ratios and improving underwriting margins over several quarters, signalling progress toward sustainable profitability.
ChatGPT noted that such improvements are critical for insurers, as lower combined ratios and clearer paths to free cash flow often trigger rapid valuation re-ratings, particularly among small-cap stocks.
Root has also reported sequential growth in gross premiums and policies in force through Q3 and into Q4 2025, supporting revenue growth alongside better unit economics.
In Q3, the company posted revenue of $387.8 million, up 26.9% year over year and above estimates, driven by a new pricing algorithm and expanded distribution. It recorded a $5.4 million net loss, mainly due to warrant-related expenses tied to its Carvana partnership.
The AI model cited upcoming earnings commentary on sustained profitability, geographic expansion, partnerships, and product rollouts as key 2026 catalysts, while noting risks from claims volatility, competition, and small-cap sentiment swings.
By press time, ROOT stock was trading at $80, up nearly 10% year-to-date.
dLocal (NASDAQ: DLO)
The second stock identified is dLocal (NASDAQ: DLO), a cross-border payments firm focused on emerging markets.
The firm reported total payment volume of $10.4 billion in Q3 2025, up about 59% year-over-year, with momentum carrying into the final quarter.
ChatGPT noted that rising volumes directly support revenue and gross profit growth, particularly for processors with scale and operating leverage.
Meanwhiile, throughout 2025, dLocal’s filings showed expanding gross margins and improving adjusted EBITDA, suggesting growth is becoming more profitable rather than purely volume-driven.
Structural tailwinds also support the outlook, as digital payments and e-commerce adoption across Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia continue to outpace developed markets.
At the same time, ChatGPT highlighted dLocal’s expanding merchant base, broader geographic diversification, and improved product mix as drivers of more resilient growth.
Catalysts into late 2025 and early 2026 include accelerating volumes, higher take rates from value-added services, and potential regulatory or partnership developments.
As of press time, DLO was trading at $14.11, up more than 20% year-to-date.
ChatGPT concluded that the two stocks’ upside depends on sustained underwriting profitability and faster policy growth that could drive a small-cap re-rating.
While a tenfold return in a single year remains ambitious, the analysis suggested these two stocks have the late-2025 fundamentals and catalysts most likely to support such an outcome in 2026.
Featured image via Shutterstock
