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Here Are the Top-Performing S&P 500 Stocks From 2025
One of the most hated bull markets in history continued in 2025, building upon the prior year’s gains in stellar fashion. With just one trading day left, the S&P 500 has delivered a total return north of 17% year-to-date and has now entered the fourth year of its latest bullish run.
As is normally the case even during the most powerful runs, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing this year. Looking back, it was certainly a rollercoaster, with the S&P 500 teetering on the brink of a bear market within the first few months of 2025. The early tariff-related volatility sent the major indexes plunging into April.
But as the veil lifted and the tariff picture became clearer, stocks put in a V-shaped rally that we’ve only seen a handful of times over the past few decades. An underlying downward trend in inflation combined with better-than-expected corporate earnings helped propel the S&P 500 back to record highs.
Image Source: StockCharts
These patterns repeat themselves over time, but rarely do we see such a pronounced move. The last such occurrence came off the 2020 lows following the COVID-19 pandemic. And while circumstances were certainly different back then, the price action has been eerily similar. And we know that markets performed fairly well in 2021, the year following that major V-shaped move.
That’s not a prediction in any form or fashion; markets are dynamic and unpredictable. But we should be open to the idea that this uptrend has more room to run. That being said, the longer we go without a correction, the more likely it becomes.
Unique catalysts such as the artificial intelligence theme resulted in the more aggressive pockets of the market returning to the forefront. The two sectors that led the way in 2025 included information technology and communication services, which are exactly the areas we’d expect to outperform in a bull market. But the AI-driven rally has come to a halt lately as tech companies have been lagging in December.
Santa Claus Rally Stalls
The so-called “Santa Claus Rally” period, which consists of the final five trading days of the year along with the first two trading days in January, is statistically one of the best 7-day stretches of the year. Since 1950, these 7 glorious days tend to be overwhelmingly green, as the S&P 500 posts an average gain of 1.3% and is positive nearly 80% of the time. In fact, no other 7 days of the year are more likely to finish higher!
The S&P 500 is negative thus far during the period, which could spell trouble for 2026 returns according to historical precedent. Years where markets saw negative returns during the Santa Claus Rally (SCR) period tended to precede bear markets or times when stocks could be bought at lower prices later in the year. For example, a negative SCR preceded relatively flat years like 1994, 2005 and 2015, as well as some of the worst years on record like 2008.
The SCR period will run through the close on January 5th, so there’s still plenty of time to turn things around. Of course, a negative return wouldn’t be a deal breaker (we saw that last year, and stocks performed admirably in 2025). Still, the occurrence coincided with the chance to buy stocks on sale back in April.
The media-hyped concentration risk at the very top of the cap-weighted S&P 500 would have us believe that investors are becoming increasingly reliant on a smaller number of companies to lead their portfolios. But the 3 top performers this year make up roughly just 0.7% of the index weight combined.
Keep in mind we still have the remainder of this last trading session of the year, so theoretically these could change. But in all likelihood, the stocks we analyze below will go down as the top 3 winners from the S&P 500 this year.
S&P 500 Gold: Sandisk
A developer and manufacturer of data storage devices and solutions, Sandisk (SNDK - Free Report) took the top spot in 2025. A Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, the company offers solid state drives (SSDs) for desktop and notebook PCs, gaming consoles, and set top boxes, as well as flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones and tablets.
Sandisk is Western Digital’s former flash memory business that was spun off and relisted in February 2025. The top spot in 2025 comes with a bit of an asterisk as the company was recently added to the S&P 500 back in November. The stock rose more than 560% since its February debut and remains in a strong uptrend:
Image Source: StockCharts
Consensus estimates call for fiscal 2026 EPS growth of over 300% to $12.59 per share, supported by robust NAND pricing and accelerating exabyte shipments. SanDisk’s advanced BiCS8 QLC technology is seeing strong adoption in high-density enterprise SSDs and embedded storage for AI edge devices. A forward P/E multiple in the mid-teens appears attractive given the structural growth tailwind.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
S&P 500 Silver: Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (WDC - Free Report) , a leader in enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs) and nearline storage, currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The stock has delivered a remarkable return of over 290% year-to-date, reflecting sharp upward revisions to earnings estimates.
Image Source: StockCharts
Analysts now project fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS of $7.66, representing over 55% growth from the prior year. Revenues from the Cloud end segment, which account for nearly 90% of Western Digital’s revenue, grew 31% in the most recent quarter.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Innovations such as UltraSMR and heat-assisted magnetic recording have enabled the company to ship industry-leading 30TB+ drives tailored for AI data lakes. Strong free cash flow generation and a fortified balance sheet provide additional financial flexibility as the company capitalizes on multi-year hyperscaler buildouts.
Both Sandisk and Western Digital are part of the Zacks Computer – Storage Devices industry group, which currently ranks in the top 8% out of approximately 250 Zacks Ranked Industries. And the industry's tailwinds are just getting started. AI-powered storage markets are exploding—from $30.27 billion in 2025 to a projected $187.61 billion by 2035 at a 20% compounded annual growth rate. Data center operators and hyperscalers continue to expand infrastructure at an unprecedented pace, driving sustained demand for both HDDs and NAND flash-based solutions.
S&P 500 Bronze: Micron
Building on the AI theme and rounding out the top 3 in terms of S&P 500 returns this year was none other than memory giant Micron (MU - Free Report) . Micron manufactures and markets high-performance memory and storage technologies. Its solutions are used in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking and mobile products.
The stock’s rise has been driven primarily by explosive demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a specialized DRAM variant essential for training and running large AI models. Micron reported that its HBM supply for calendar 2025 sold out earlier in the year, with revenue from this segment contributing significantly to record results.
Micron reported revenue of around $37 billion in fiscal 2025—up nearly 49% year-over-year—and a dramatic turnaround to profitability with earnings exceeding $8 billion. The stock surged nearly 250% this year:
Image Source: StockCharts
Data center revenue improved substantially, fueled by partnerships with leaders like Nvidia, whose Blackwell and upcoming platforms rely heavily on Micron's products. The company’s investments in advanced nodes are paying off, enabling higher densities, better power efficiency, and premium pricing that have expanded gross margins substantially.
Micron carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), our highest rating, supported by consistent upward earnings estimate revisions. Consensus for the current quarter (Q2 FY2026) points to revenue of approximately $18.7 billion (up 132% year-over-year) and adjusted EPS near $8.39—up more than 400% from the same period in the prior year. Analysts have bumped up their EPS estimates by a whopping 112.94% in the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Final Thoughts
The beginning of a new year is a great time to take a step back and analyze what went right the previous year, and more importantly, what we could have done better. Studying the top performers is a fantastic way to prepare for the year ahead.
Positive seasonality represents a major tailwind for stocks. Make sure to keep an eye on how markets perform over the SCR period.
Remember, we have another shortened week with markets closed on New Year’s Day. From all of us here at Zacks, we wish you a Happy New Year. Cheers to making 2026 your most successful investing year yet!
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Here Are the Top-Performing S&P 500 Stocks From 2025
One of the most hated bull markets in history continued in 2025, building upon the prior year’s gains in stellar fashion. With just one trading day left, the S&P 500 has delivered a total return north of 17% year-to-date and has now entered the fourth year of its latest bullish run.
As is normally the case even during the most powerful runs, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing this year. Looking back, it was certainly a rollercoaster, with the S&P 500 teetering on the brink of a bear market within the first few months of 2025. The early tariff-related volatility sent the major indexes plunging into April.
But as the veil lifted and the tariff picture became clearer, stocks put in a V-shaped rally that we’ve only seen a handful of times over the past few decades. An underlying downward trend in inflation combined with better-than-expected corporate earnings helped propel the S&P 500 back to record highs.
Image Source: StockCharts
These patterns repeat themselves over time, but rarely do we see such a pronounced move. The last such occurrence came off the 2020 lows following the COVID-19 pandemic. And while circumstances were certainly different back then, the price action has been eerily similar. And we know that markets performed fairly well in 2021, the year following that major V-shaped move.
That’s not a prediction in any form or fashion; markets are dynamic and unpredictable. But we should be open to the idea that this uptrend has more room to run. That being said, the longer we go without a correction, the more likely it becomes.
Unique catalysts such as the artificial intelligence theme resulted in the more aggressive pockets of the market returning to the forefront. The two sectors that led the way in 2025 included information technology and communication services, which are exactly the areas we’d expect to outperform in a bull market. But the AI-driven rally has come to a halt lately as tech companies have been lagging in December.
Santa Claus Rally Stalls
The so-called “Santa Claus Rally” period, which consists of the final five trading days of the year along with the first two trading days in January, is statistically one of the best 7-day stretches of the year. Since 1950, these 7 glorious days tend to be overwhelmingly green, as the S&P 500 posts an average gain of 1.3% and is positive nearly 80% of the time. In fact, no other 7 days of the year are more likely to finish higher!
The S&P 500 is negative thus far during the period, which could spell trouble for 2026 returns according to historical precedent. Years where markets saw negative returns during the Santa Claus Rally (SCR) period tended to precede bear markets or times when stocks could be bought at lower prices later in the year. For example, a negative SCR preceded relatively flat years like 1994, 2005 and 2015, as well as some of the worst years on record like 2008.
The SCR period will run through the close on January 5th, so there’s still plenty of time to turn things around. Of course, a negative return wouldn’t be a deal breaker (we saw that last year, and stocks performed admirably in 2025). Still, the occurrence coincided with the chance to buy stocks on sale back in April.
The media-hyped concentration risk at the very top of the cap-weighted S&P 500 would have us believe that investors are becoming increasingly reliant on a smaller number of companies to lead their portfolios. But the 3 top performers this year make up roughly just 0.7% of the index weight combined.
Keep in mind we still have the remainder of this last trading session of the year, so theoretically these could change. But in all likelihood, the stocks we analyze below will go down as the top 3 winners from the S&P 500 this year.
S&P 500 Gold: Sandisk
A developer and manufacturer of data storage devices and solutions, Sandisk (SNDK - Free Report) took the top spot in 2025. A Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, the company offers solid state drives (SSDs) for desktop and notebook PCs, gaming consoles, and set top boxes, as well as flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones and tablets.
Sandisk is Western Digital’s former flash memory business that was spun off and relisted in February 2025. The top spot in 2025 comes with a bit of an asterisk as the company was recently added to the S&P 500 back in November. The stock rose more than 560% since its February debut and remains in a strong uptrend:
Image Source: StockCharts
Consensus estimates call for fiscal 2026 EPS growth of over 300% to $12.59 per share, supported by robust NAND pricing and accelerating exabyte shipments. SanDisk’s advanced BiCS8 QLC technology is seeing strong adoption in high-density enterprise SSDs and embedded storage for AI edge devices. A forward P/E multiple in the mid-teens appears attractive given the structural growth tailwind.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
S&P 500 Silver: Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (WDC - Free Report) , a leader in enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs) and nearline storage, currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The stock has delivered a remarkable return of over 290% year-to-date, reflecting sharp upward revisions to earnings estimates.
Image Source: StockCharts
Analysts now project fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS of $7.66, representing over 55% growth from the prior year. Revenues from the Cloud end segment, which account for nearly 90% of Western Digital’s revenue, grew 31% in the most recent quarter.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Innovations such as UltraSMR and heat-assisted magnetic recording have enabled the company to ship industry-leading 30TB+ drives tailored for AI data lakes. Strong free cash flow generation and a fortified balance sheet provide additional financial flexibility as the company capitalizes on multi-year hyperscaler buildouts.
Both Sandisk and Western Digital are part of the Zacks Computer – Storage Devices industry group, which currently ranks in the top 8% out of approximately 250 Zacks Ranked Industries. And the industry's tailwinds are just getting started. AI-powered storage markets are exploding—from $30.27 billion in 2025 to a projected $187.61 billion by 2035 at a 20% compounded annual growth rate. Data center operators and hyperscalers continue to expand infrastructure at an unprecedented pace, driving sustained demand for both HDDs and NAND flash-based solutions.
S&P 500 Bronze: Micron
Building on the AI theme and rounding out the top 3 in terms of S&P 500 returns this year was none other than memory giant Micron (MU - Free Report) . Micron manufactures and markets high-performance memory and storage technologies. Its solutions are used in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking and mobile products.
The stock’s rise has been driven primarily by explosive demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a specialized DRAM variant essential for training and running large AI models. Micron reported that its HBM supply for calendar 2025 sold out earlier in the year, with revenue from this segment contributing significantly to record results.
Micron reported revenue of around $37 billion in fiscal 2025—up nearly 49% year-over-year—and a dramatic turnaround to profitability with earnings exceeding $8 billion. The stock surged nearly 250% this year:
Image Source: StockCharts
Data center revenue improved substantially, fueled by partnerships with leaders like Nvidia, whose Blackwell and upcoming platforms rely heavily on Micron's products. The company’s investments in advanced nodes are paying off, enabling higher densities, better power efficiency, and premium pricing that have expanded gross margins substantially.
Micron carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), our highest rating, supported by consistent upward earnings estimate revisions. Consensus for the current quarter (Q2 FY2026) points to revenue of approximately $18.7 billion (up 132% year-over-year) and adjusted EPS near $8.39—up more than 400% from the same period in the prior year. Analysts have bumped up their EPS estimates by a whopping 112.94% in the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Final Thoughts
The beginning of a new year is a great time to take a step back and analyze what went right the previous year, and more importantly, what we could have done better. Studying the top performers is a fantastic way to prepare for the year ahead.
Positive seasonality represents a major tailwind for stocks. Make sure to keep an eye on how markets perform over the SCR period.
Remember, we have another shortened week with markets closed on New Year’s Day. From all of us here at Zacks, we wish you a Happy New Year. Cheers to making 2026 your most successful investing year yet!