Smart Investor: 7 Undervalued Stocks That Just Raised Dividends

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In this week’s newsletter:

• Market Wrap: Stocks Down After Big Losses in Energy and Tech
• 7 Undervalued Stocks That Just Raised Dividends
• 10 Top-Performing US Dividend Stocks
• 4 Big Impacts from the US Midterm Elections for Investors
• November Stock Market Outlook: How to Position Your Portfolio for the Remainder of 2026
• October CPI Forecasts Show Inflation Softening, but December Rate Hike Still Looks Likely
• Nvidia Lost Its Top Spot to Apple. What Does History Tell Us About No. 1 Stocks?
• What’s Happening in the Markets This Week

The Democratic wave that swept through Congress and state houses swamped the already-shaky AI trade this past week. The expectation is that while a divided government may mean gridlock at the federal level, at the state and local levels, the push will be on to slow data center development.

The result was a massive selloff in AI stocks on Thursday, with only a small bounce in the overall market Friday as some of the hard-hit names recovered some ground. In all, the Morningstar US Total Market Index lost 2.4% for the week, dragged down by a 6.7% drop in tech stocks and a 12.0% decline in the energy sector.

You can find more key stats, including the week’s biggest winners and losers in the stock market, in our weekly markets wrap.

Of course, this is just a short-term market reaction, and AI is but one part of the story. We pulled together analyst views from across Wall Street about the election’s impact on legislation, the debt ceiling, and the budget deficit in the months and years ahead.

One notable factoid from this week: Nvidia, the market’s powerhouse stock for the better part of two and a half years, posted a year-to-date loss at the close of trading on Thursday. Meanwhile, Apple has overtaken Nvidia as the largest stock in the market. Morningstar Index’s Dan Lefkovitz dug into the history books (or more accurately, 100 years of US stock data from the Center for Research in Security Prices, recently acquired by Morningstar) to see what lessons we can learn about the small group of stocks that has for a time held the crown for the largest market cap.

There was other news this past week besides the election and the AI stock swoon. Friday saw the latest in a string of surprising jobs reports. This time, the hiring numbers came in hotter than expected, with 165,000 new jobs in October. Analysts say that sets the Federal Reserve up for a rate hike in December. But they say the Consumer Price Index data, due Tuesday, will be more important.

Against this news, where to invest now? Morningstar chief US strategist Dave Sekera offers his take in his latest stock market outlook.

Lastly, we have our monthly stock market screens. We’ve got October’s best- and worst-performing stocks, which include Intel and Sandisk. The 10 best-performing dividend stocks include Accenture and Fidelity National. And our monthly screen of undervalued dividend stocks that just raised payouts came up with seven names, including Ally Financial and Thor Industries.

As always, visit our Markets page for the latest coverage and our full weekly calendar of key upcoming data and events.