I asked ChatGPT for the best UK stocks to buy for my portfolio in the market sell-off. Here’s what it said

Late last year, I asked ChatGPT for the best stocks to buy for my portfolio for 2025. I was given five blue-chip Footsie shares in Shell, Diageo, Unilever, Tesco, and AstraZeneca â all decent companies, but not exactly original choices.

Recently, I decided to test the generative AI appâs skills again so I asked it to give me five UK stocks to buy in light of the current market sell-off.

ChatGPTâs five sell-off picks

The generative AI appâs top picks for the current market pullback were:

Barclays
Vodafone
Marks and Spencer (LSE: MKS)
Rolls-Royce Holdings
Legal & General Group

It informed me that these selections span various sectors, offering diversification and potential resilience amid market volatility.

My initial thoughts

Now upon receiving these picks, two things jumped out at me. One was that ChatGPT still doesnât do any real stock analysis. Ultimately, it just scrapes ideas from websites (some of which are a little questionable).

This isnât ideal. It didnât seem to have any idea of the risks associated with an economic downturn/recession and how that could impact certain stocks.

The other issue was that pretty much all of the information was out of date. For example, it told me that Barclays shares have a dividend yield of 4.5%. Today however, the yield on offer from the shares is about 3.2%. Again, this isn’t ideal. If people were using the app to make investment decisions (Iâm sure some people are), theyâd be making decisions based on wrong information.

Average choices?

Going back to the five stocks, I donât think itâs a great list, if Iâm honest. Buying a bank stock like Barclays before a recession could backfire. Thatâs because banks are economically sensitive.

Investing in an insurer like Legal & General right now could also backfire. When thereâs financial market turbulence, these stocks often take a hit.

Vodafoneâs not a stock Iâm interested in buying. It has minimal growth and a lot of debt â not a great combination.

As for Rolls-Royce, I like what the company’s doing but the stock’s expensive. Currently, the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is about 29, which is high.

One stock I do like

One stock on the list I like the look of, however, is Marks and Spencer. And Iâm clearly not the only one who sees appeal here â while the market has sold off, the shares have been moving higher (they recently hit their highest level since 2016).

Iâve been doing a lot of shopping at Marks recently (both for food and clothes) and been thoroughly impressed with the offer. What really impresses me is their online clothing â there’s great value here, in my view.

Would the company be able to hold up in a recession? Well, there are no guarantees. But it does have a more affluent customer base than other UK supermarkets. So that could help. In terms of the valuation, the P/E ratio here is about 13. That seems reasonable. The dividend yield is about 2%. So thereâs a little bit of income on offer.

Overall, I see quite a bit of appeal in this stock. Iâm not sure itâs the best fit for my own portfolio (which is more focused on long-term growth themes and the companies that will benefit), but I think it’s worth considering today.

The post I asked ChatGPT for the best UK stocks to buy for my portfolio in the market sell-off. Hereâs what it said appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.

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Edward Sheldon owns shares in Unilever and Diageo. The Motley Fool UK has recommended AstraZeneca Plc, Barclays Plc, Diageo Plc, Rolls-Royce Plc, Tesco Plc, Unilever, and Vodafone Group Public. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.