Top 10 bought stocks: November 2026

As November arrives, it's time for our regular look at Freetrade users’ most-bought stocks of the last month. 

Our usual cadence of monthly check-ins was interrupted last month as I took some time off, but unlike me, investors clearly didn’t have their feet up. Indeed, while the top 10 comprises familiar faces, it's digging into platform data and uncovering the intensity of users’ trading that gives us our most interesting insight into their behaviour. Plough on to find out why.

Remember that this list is not meant as investment advice. Instead, it is simply an insight into the most popular stocks on Freetrade right now.

Most bought stocks methodology: The rankings are based on the total executed value of buy orders placed by Freetrade customers from 1 October to 31 October 2026. The figures reflect buy-side activity only and do not account for sales, holding periods, or individual portfolio weightings.

Chips and dips

Despite a protracted market wobble, the most popular stocks among Freetrade’s customer base are very much the usual suspects; US tech giants, most of whom are heavily exposed to the AI trade.

First, let’s take a quick look at what’s happening with AI, and why. 

October looked like a bruising month for America's biggest technology stocks. The Nasdaq Composite lost more than 5% as earnings releases solidified investors’ already bubbling concerns over AI spending.

To be clear, this isn’t an issue with demand for AI. 

Instead, the problem is that satisfying the cost of that demand, and jostling for position in the race to become a dominant force in what big tech companies clearly believe is fundamental to the future, has a massive price tag.

For example, let’s look at Google owner Alphabet, the most-bought stock on Freetrade last month. 

The company is spending so much it reported negative free cash flow of $9.1bn in Q3, even after it generated $42.3bn in operating cash flow. The Silicon Valley giant expects capital expenditure in the realm of $195bn to $205bn across its fiscal year as it loads up on chips, servers, networking equipment, and all the various doodads needed for its data centre buildout. 

One of the largest and most cash-generative businesses on the planet is burning through the bills in its relentless pursuit of AI supremacy. In response, Alphabet stock dipped by 12.6% in the session following its Q3 earnings release.

The additional facet to this concern is the high cost of finding additional capital for AI infrastructure projects. Borrowing is expensive, issuing equity can dilute existing shareholders’ positions, and solutions like leasing equipment or partnering with private equity may have unattractive long term commitments or terms and conditions.

Increasingly creative solutions might allow companies to continue spending at pace, but they come with strings attached like costs, risks, and future commitments. That’s why some investors are starting to worry that the eventual returns won’t be sufficient.

Market volatility and periods of decline are inevitable in investing, and can shake the confidence of some investors. But they can also represent an opportunity to pick up a stock at a lower price than you could have purchased it a day, week, or month before. So, how did Freetrade users respond last month?

Unbowed, unbent, unbroken

We’ve seen how the market might have had the potential to put the frighteners on AI investors, but Freetrade users have held firm and continued to buy the dip. 

The total executed value of purchases for each stock in the top 10 ALL exceeded the total value of sales. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Purchases of Alphabet and Nvidia stock were 73.7% and 66.0% higher than the total value of sales, respectively. 

What’s particularly interesting is that the ratio of Freetrade users’ buying activity relative to selling activity actually appears to have intensified even as big tech share prices have come under pressure. 

Back in September, purchases of Alphabet and Nvidia stock were still higher than sales, but by a more modest 64.1% and 46.9% respectively. In fact, while I’ve just used the top two stocks as an example, every single one of the top ten stocks experienced an increase in relative buying.

Standouts included Apple, where the value of purchases compared to sales rose from 78.5% in September to 107.7% in October, and Meta, which saw an increase from 35.3% to 66.4%.

Let’s put that in perspective. For every £100 of Apple shares sold by Freetrade users in October, more than £207 worth were purchased. That's up from around £179 in September.

Now there could be myriad factors at play here, but regardless of what’s going on in the background, it demonstrates Freetrade users were either undeterred from existing investing strategies, or taking advantage of lower prices to load up their portfolios with big tech.

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