How to Compare Two Stocks With AI (2026)

Federico Kunze Küllmer is the founder of Moneda, one of the tools compared here.

Short answer: Pick two companies that do roughly the same job, then ask an AI to put them side by side on the same handful of measures: growth, profit, cash, debt, valuation and what could go wrong. Make it show the source for every number, ask for the case for and against each one, and then check the two or three figures that matter most in the company's own annual report. The AI does the gathering. You make the call.

Comparing two stocks used to mean two browser windows, two annual reports and a spreadsheet. An AI can do the gathering in a minute. It can also get a number wrong with total confidence. This guide shows you how to get the speed and still trust the result.

Before you start: a few terms

You will see these words below. Here is what they mean in plain English.

• 10-K: the annual report a US-listed company files with the SEC, the US market regulator. It holds the audited numbers. Anyone can read it for free on SEC EDGAR.
• P/E (price to earnings): the share price divided by the profit per share. It tells you how many years of current profit you are paying for. Higher usually means the market expects more growth.
• Free cash flow: the cash a business has left after paying its running costs and its investment in equipment and buildings. Profit can be shaped by accounting choices. Cash is harder to fake.
• Moat: a lasting advantage that keeps competitors out, like a strong brand, a network many people already use, or costs nobody else can match.
• DCF (discounted cash flow): a way to estimate what a business is worth today by adding up the cash it may earn in future, shrunk back to today's money.
• ETF (exchange-traded fund): a fund that holds many shares or assets and trades on an exchange like a single share.

Step 1: Pick a fair pair

A comparison only works if both companies answer the same question. Two chip makers, two payment networks, two supermarket chains. Comparing a bank with a software company tells you little, because their numbers work in different ways. Banks carry debt as part of the business; software companies mostly do not.

Ask the AI to confirm the pair makes sense before you go further:

• "Do Company A and Company B compete for the same customers? Where do they overlap and where do they differ?"
• "What share of each company's revenue comes from the business they have in common?"

If the overlap is small, you may be comparing two different bets. That is fine, but know it going in.

Step 2: Set the same yardstick for both

Decide the measures first, then ask for them all at once. Otherwise the AI tends to pick whatever makes each company look interesting. A simple set that works for most companies:

A prompt that does this in one go:

• "Compare Company A and Company B in a table: revenue growth over 5 years, operating margin, free cash flow, net debt, P/E, price to free cash flow and change in share count. Use the latest 10-K and show the source and date for every number."

Keep that last sentence. Step 5 explains why.

Step 3: Ask for both sides of each story

Numbers tell you what happened. You also need to know what could go right or wrong next. Ask for the bull case (the optimistic view) and the bear case (the worried view) for each company, separately:

• "Give me the strongest bull case and the strongest bear case for Company A. Then do the same for Company B. Use evidence from filings, not opinion."
• "What would have to be true for Company B to be the better investment over five years?"
• "Which risks in each company's 10-K risk factors section are new compared with last year?"

I like that last question. Companies list their risks every year, and a new one is often a sign of something management is watching.

Step 4: Look under the surface

Two companies can post the same profit and be very different businesses. Three checks help.

Quality of earnings. Does reported profit turn into cash? If profit keeps rising but free cash flow does not, ask why.

• "For each company, compare net income with operating cash flow over the last five years. Flag any year where they move apart, and explain the likely reason."

The moat. Which company has the more durable advantage? A framework many investors use is Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers: scale economies, network effects, counter-positioning, switching costs, branding, cornered resource and process power.

• "Score Company A and Company B on the 7 Powers. For each score, give one piece of evidence."

Valuation in context. A low P/E can mean a bargain or a business in decline.

• "Is Company A's P/E low because the market expects lower profits? What do its own guidance and recent results say?"
• "Run a simple DCF for each company with three scenarios. Tell me which assumption moves the result most."

Treat any DCF from an AI as a sketch. Small changes to growth or discount rates swing the answer a lot. The useful output is knowing which assumption matters.

Step 5: Make the AI show its work

This is the step most people skip. General AI tools can produce a figure that looks right and is a year old, from the wrong company, or simply made up. The fix is to ask for the source every time:

• "For every number in that table, give me the filing, the period and the page or section it comes from."
• "Which of these numbers did you calculate yourself, and how?"

If the tool cannot point to a source, treat the number as unknown.

A tool built for investing research makes this easier. Moneda AI, built on Numa 1, Moneda's financial AI engine, works figures out from company filings and live market data and shows the source behind each one. In Moneda's own tests in October 2026, it scored 97.9% on groundedness (answers supported by the sources it used) and 92% on claim verifiability. Those are Moneda's own tests, not independent audits, so the habit in this step still applies.

Step 6: Check the numbers that decide it yourself

You do not need to check everything. Find the two or three figures your decision rests on, then open the 10-K and look. On SEC EDGAR you can search the full text of filings back to 2001.

What to check:

1. Revenue and operating income for the latest full year, in the income statement.
2. Operating cash flow and capital spending, in the cash flow statement. Subtract one from the other for free cash flow.
3. Total debt and cash, in the balance sheet.
4. The date. Make sure the AI used the latest annual report, not last year's.
5. One-off items. A big gain or charge in the notes can make one year look better or worse than it really was.

If the AI's number and the filing differ, go with the filing.

Step 7: Write down your decision and what would change it

Finish with a short note in your own words: which company you prefer, the one or two reasons, and what would make you change your mind. For example, "I prefer B because it turns more profit into cash and has less debt. I'd reconsider if its margins fall two years in a row."

You can ask the AI to tidy this up:

• "Summarise my reasoning in five lines and list the three signals I should watch each quarter."

Doing this in Moneda

You can run every step above in any AI chat tool if you are careful about sources. Most tools do either the research or the investing. Moneda does both: answers that show the source behind every figure, then you invest in the same app, with your approval on every trade. In Moneda, the steps sit in one app:

• Research: Moneda AI covers stocks, ETFs, a few commodities through ETFs (gold, silver, oil) and crypto. It gives the bull and bear case, scores a company's 7 Powers, checks quality of earnings and shows the Moneda Ratio, a descriptive 1 to 7 scorecard. It writes earnings summaries, and you can search both companies' SEC filings and earnings-call transcripts side by side.
• Finding candidates: a stock screener turns a plain-words description into a list of companies to compare.
• Context: you can benchmark a portfolio against gold, an index or any fund, and stress-test it against 2008, 2020 and 2022.
• Ideas: describe what you want in plain language and the agent finds candidates to compare.
• Acting on it: you can invest in US-listed shares and ETFs (fractional) and crypto in the same app. Every trade is approved by you with your passkey (face or fingerprint). Moneda AI never tells you to buy or sell.
• Your own AI: Moneda MCP connects Claude and ChatGPT to your Moneda account, with the permissions you choose for each one.

Honest limit: you can only invest in US-listed shares and ETFs, so no European-listed stocks or funds.

Standard is free; Premium starts at €9.99 a month and Ultra at €19.99 a month, with more AI usage.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT or Claude compare two stocks?

Yes, these general assistants can build a comparison if you give them a clear set of measures. Ask for the source of every number and check the key figures in the 10-K, because a general assistant may not use the latest filing.

What is the most important number when comparing two stocks?

There is no single one. Free cash flow is a good place to start, because it shows how much real cash the business produces. Then look at what you pay for that cash.

How many measures should I compare?

Six to eight is enough for most decisions. More than that and the comparison gets harder to read without telling you much more.

Should I trust an AI's valuation of a stock?

Use it to understand the assumptions, not as a price target. A DCF depends heavily on its inputs, so ask which assumption moves the result most.

Where can I read a company's 10-K for free?

On SEC EDGAR, the SEC's public filing database. Most companies also link their annual reports on their investor relations page.

Does Moneda AI tell me which stock to buy?

No. It researches, compares and shows its sources. The decision, and every trade, stays with you.

This guide is for education only and is not investment advice.