2025's Best Stocks in 2026:Only 3 of 10 Beat the S&P 500

In December 2025, a ranking of 32 large US-listed companies named the ten best and the five worst performers by 2025 share-price change. Did those winners keep winning in 2026?

On average they did. The typical one did not. As of the October 13, 2026 close, the ten 2025 winners averaged +34.16% in 2026, more than double the S&P 500's +14.09%. The median winner gained only +6.78%. The median is the stock in the middle when all ten are lined up. Two chipmakers, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel (INTC), carried the average.

The five 2025 losers split in a similar way. Two more details sit behind both groups, and a single year-to-date figure hides them: the path each stock took through the year, and the days on which the biggest moves happened.

All returns are price returns: the change in the closing share price from the December 31, 2025 close to the October 13, 2026 close, with dividends not included. Total return, the other common measure, adds dividends back in. For any company that paid dividends during the period, total return would come out higher than price return.

The 2025 Winners in 2026

The table shows the ten winners in their 2025 rank order, with each stock's closing price on December 31, 2025 and on October 13, 2026. Two benchmarks sit beneath them. A benchmark is a reference point for judging a return: a stock that rose 10% while the broad market rose 14% lagged the market even though it went up. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 are two widely followed US stock indexes.

Past performance does not indicate future results. The table records what happened between two dates and nothing more.

The spread inside the group is very wide. Advanced Micro Devices rose +182.75% and Intel +178.62%, so both nearly tripled in price. AppLovin (APP), No. 2 on the 2025 list, fell 59.59% and lost more than half its value. Palantir Technologies, No. 1 on the 2025 list, gained +17.40%, a little ahead of the S&P 500. Alphabet (GOOGL) gained +13.03%, CVS Health (CVS) +10.32%, Broadcom (AVGO) +3.24% and Goldman Sachs (GS) +1.47%. Dollar Tree (DLTR) slipped 5.47%, and GE Aerospace (GE) ended almost where it started, at −0.13%.

Why the Average Misleads: Mean Versus Median

A group of returns is usually summed up in one of two ways. The average, or mean, adds up all the returns and divides by how many there are. The median lines the returns up from lowest to highest and takes the middle one. With ten stocks, the median is the midpoint between the fifth and the sixth. Both measures here count every stock equally (equal weight), however large the company is.

For the ten 2025 winners, the two measures give very different pictures. The mean is +34.16%. The median is +6.78%, halfway between Broadcom's +3.24% and CVS Health's +10.32%. The mean says the group beat the S&P 500 by a wide margin. The median says the typical stock in the group trailed it by more than seven percentage points.

The gap exists because extreme values pull the mean and leave the median alone. Two returns above +175% lift the mean sharply. The median only depends on which stocks sit in the middle. When a few results are very large, the mean says more about those few than about the group.

Two Chipmakers Carried the Basket

Take Advanced Micro Devices and Intel out and the point becomes concrete. The other eight 2025 winners averaged −2.47% in 2026. The strong headline figure for the group comes entirely from two semiconductor companies. A reader who sees only the +34.16% average and a reader who looks at the remaining eight stocks would describe the same list in opposite terms.

How Many Beat the Benchmarks

Counting gives a second check, and extreme values cannot distort it. Of the ten 2025 winners:

• 3 beat the S&P 500's +14.09%: Advanced Micro Devices, Intel and Palantir Technologies.
• 2 beat the Nasdaq-100's +21.04%: Advanced Micro Devices and Intel.
• 3 fell in 2026: AppLovin, Dollar Tree and GE Aerospace.

That leaves seven of the ten behind the S&P 500 as of October 13, 2026. Alphabet came closest, at +13.03%.

The Ride, Not Just the Result

A return from one date to another hides everything in between. Someone holding a stock lives through the whole path. The painful part of that path is usually measured as a drawdown: the fall from a high point to a later low, as a percentage of the high.

The table shows the highest and lowest 2026 closing prices for five of the winners. Beside each price is its change from the December 31, 2025 close.

On paper, Palantir Technologies finished at a solid +17.40%. At the June 30 close it was −34.36% for the year, and its lowest close came on June 25 at $107.27, −39.65% below where it began 2026. From June 30 to October 13 it rose +78.85%, and it made its highest 2026 close of $209.05 on October 9. The October figure shows a modest gain. A holder through June first watched the stock lose almost two-fifths of its value.

Intel's path ran the other way. Its highest close, $140.94 on June 22, was +281.95% above the December 31 close. By October 13 the stock was −27.05% below that high, a drawdown of more than a quarter, and still +178.62% for the year. Advanced Micro Devices fell first, to $190.95 on March 3 (−10.84%), and later made its highest close of $649.42 on October 6 (+203.24%). Broadcom was up as much as +39.14% at its June 2 high close and ended the period at +3.24%.

AppLovin's highest 2026 close came early, at $668.63 on January 13, already slightly below its December 31 close. Its lowest came on October 2 at $268.22. Nike (NKE), on the losers' side of the 2025 list, also made its lowest 2026 close on October 2, at $33.87.

Some of the lows lined up with the broad market. The S&P 500 made its lowest 2026 close on March 30, at −7.32% versus December 31. Alphabet, Broadcom, GE Aerospace and Novo Nordisk (NVO) all made their lowest 2026 closes the same day. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and CVS Health made theirs on March 27. Several of these stocks finished the period higher, and at that point in March all of them were well below their starting prices.

The 2025 Losers in 2026: Did They Bounce Back?

The other half of the 2025 list holds its five weakest performers. A common idea about losers is mean reversion: an unusually large move in one direction tends to be followed by a move back toward a longer-run average. If mean reversion described these five stocks, most rows below would show a recovery.

Three of the five rose: Target (TGT) +55.49%, UnitedHealth Group +14.43% and Costco Wholesale (COST) +10.70%. Two kept falling: Nike fell 44.55%, and Novo Nordisk, the worst of the five in 2025, fell 25.20%. Two large declines offset three gains, so the group averaged only +2.17%.

Here the mean-versus-median lesson runs the other way. The median stock in this group is Costco Wholesale at +10.70%, well above the +2.17% mean. Among the winners, two big gains lifted the mean above the typical stock. Among the losers, two big declines pulled it below. In both groups, a few extreme moves set the average.

Two of the five beat the S&P 500: Target by a wide margin, and UnitedHealth Group narrowly, at +14.43% against +14.09%. Target's highest 2026 close, $169.89 on August 24, was +73.80% above its December 31 close.

Earnings Days Versus Every Other Day

The third lens asks on which days a stock's 2026 change happened. Public companies report quarterly results on SEC Form 8-K (Item 2.02), and each filing carries a timestamp. Results filed after the 4:00 p.m. ET close first trade in the next session. Results filed before the open first trade the same day. That first session is the earnings session. The table below covers six of the fifteen stocks. It splits each 2026 change into the earnings sessions and all other sessions, with the daily changes compounded within each part.

The two biggest winners show the most striking pattern. Advanced Micro Devices fell 8.83% across its three earnings sessions and rose +210.14% across the other 193. Intel fell 5.54% across its three earnings sessions and rose +194.96% across the other 193. For both companies the earnings sessions, taken together, were negative, and the entire 2026 gain came on the other days.

Palantir Technologies shows the opposite pattern. Its three earnings sessions compounded to +28.74%, while its other 193 sessions compounded to −8.81%. Its whole 2026 gain came on three days.

GE Aerospace fell on all three of its earnings sessions, −16.07% in total. It rose +19.00% across the other 193 and ended the period flat. AppLovin fell in both parts. Target rose in both, and most of its gain came on the 192 other sessions.

The largest single earnings sessions were large in both directions:

• Palantir Technologies: +29.45% on August 4, 2026, the session after its second-quarter results were filed on August 3 after the close.
• Intel: +23.60% on April 24, after first-quarter results, and −17.03% on January 23, after fourth-quarter 2025 results.
• Advanced Micro Devices: +18.61% on May 6, after first-quarter results, and −17.31% on February 4, after fourth-quarter 2025 results.
• AppLovin: −19.68% on February 12 and −19.66% on August 6, each in the session after quarterly results.

The two parts of a period multiply rather than add. Each percentage change becomes a growth factor (one plus the change), and the factors multiply to give the full-period result.

AppLovin: Earnings Per Share Versus the Share Price

AppLovin's 2026 shows a sharp contrast between company results and share price. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) is net income divided by the share count, including options and similar instruments. It rose year over year in each of the three quarters reported during 2026. Each figure was also at or above the consensus estimate, the average analyst forecast published before the release.

Over the same period the shares fell 59.59%. One possible reading is that the share price at the end of 2025 already assumed more than these results delivered. Other readings are possible. The facts are the reported figures and the price moves, side by side.

Momentum Versus Mean Reversion

Any discussion of last year's winners and losers comes back to two ideas.

Momentum is the tendency of recent winners to keep outperforming over the following months, and of recent losers to keep lagging. That tendency is the basis of momentum investing, an approach that ranks stocks by their recent returns.

Mean reversion is the opposite tendency. An unusually strong or weak stretch is followed by a move back toward a longer-run average, so winners cool off and losers recover.

Which idea fits these fifteen stocks? Neither fits cleanly. Among the winners, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel kept rising strongly, which looks like momentum. AppLovin reversed sharply and most of the rest trailed the S&P 500, which does not. Among the losers, Target's +55.49% looks like a rebound. Nike and Novo Nordisk kept falling, which looks more like momentum on the way down.

Fifteen hand-picked large companies over part of one year can illustrate these ideas. They cannot test them. The sample is tiny, it was drawn from a ranking of only 32 companies, and a full calendar year has not yet passed. With more stocks, more years or a different end date, the same patterns could look quite different.

What These Numbers Do and Do Not Show

• They show what fifteen specific stocks did between two closing prices, and how far they rose and fell along the way.
• The list is not the market. The ranking covered 32 large US-listed companies, not every stock. Its top ten and bottom five are not the best and worst stocks of 2025 overall, and their 2026 results say nothing about stocks outside the list.
• Selection shapes the result. The 32 companies were large when the ranking was made, which favors firms that had already done well enough to become large. A list built another way would produce different winners and losers.
• The period is partial. December 31, 2025 to October 13, 2026 is about nine and a half months.
• Price return is not total return. Dividends are excluded. For any company that paid dividends, total return over the period would be higher.
• Timing is not cause. The earnings-session split shows on which days prices moved. It does not show why.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do last year's best performing stocks usually keep winning?

For the ten 2025 winners in this ranking, the 2026 result to the October 13 close was mixed. The group averaged +34.16%, but the median was +6.78% and only three of the ten beat the S&P 500. One partial year of ten stocks cannot settle the general question.

What is the difference between momentum and mean reversion?

Momentum is the tendency of recent winners to keep outperforming over the following months. Mean reversion is the tendency for unusually large moves to be followed by moves back toward a longer-run average. Both describe tendencies across many stocks. Neither is a rule for any single stock.

Why can the average return of a group of stocks be misleading?

The average adds up every return and divides by the count, so a few very large moves can dominate it. The median, the middle value, is not pulled by extremes. Among the 2025 winners, the average was +34.16% while the median was +6.78%.

What is the difference between price return and total return?

Price return measures only the change in a stock's price. Total return also counts the dividends paid during the period. For a company that pays no dividend the two are the same. For a dividend payer, total return is higher.

What is a drawdown?

A drawdown is the fall from a high point to a later low, as a percentage of the high. Intel's October 13, 2026 close was −27.05% below its highest 2026 close, even though the stock was still +178.62% for the year.

Do stocks that fell sharply one year tend to recover the next?

Among the five 2025 losers in this ranking, three rose in 2026 and two kept falling, and the group averaged +2.17% to the October 13 close. Five stocks over part of a year show that a recovery can happen. They do not show that it is typical.

Reading the Next List of Last Year's Winners

Any list of last year's best stocks can be read with the same three questions: what the median says next to the average, how far the stocks rose and fell inside the period, and on which days the moves happened. A single headline number answers none of them.