The list is dominated by semiconductor and computer hardware manufacturers
All of these stocks have soared by triple digits during the first half of 2026.
With half of 2026 having already flown by, it is time to summarize which stocks have performed best so far. The S&P 500 has risen 8.7% so far this year, which is a good showing, considering that the large-cap U.S. benchmark index has risen 12.8% a year on average over the past 10 full years, according to LSEG.
All price changes in this article exclude dividends.
What we have also seen this year is a bull market driven by earnings increases - or increases in analysts' rolling 12-month earnings-per-share estimates, which are used to calculate forward price/earnings ratios.
These earnings increases have been the driver for companies in the S&P 500 SPX information technology sector, many of which have seen triple-digit gains. Even though the IT sector has been the third-best performer among the S&P 500's 11 sectors so far this year, the index's top 10 stocks for price increase have all been in the tech sector. All but three of the index's top 20 performers are tech-sector names.
Among the S&P 500, 62% of stocks have shown gains this year. Here are the 20 whose prices have risen the most during the first half of 2026:
Company 2026 price change 2025 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31 2026 change in rolling 12-month EPS estimate Sandisk 764% N/A 10.8 13.6 987% Micron Technology 301% 239% 8.1 7.9 294% Western Digital 278% 282% 35.8 19.6 107% Intel 257% 84% 97.9 61.2 123% Seagate Technology Holdings 252% 219% 34.7 20.5 107% Dell Technologies 229% 9% 20.4 11.1 79% Marvell Technology 227% -23% 56.1 24.0 40% Corning 192% 84% 68.9 28.2 19% Applied Materials 170% 58% 45.5 26.0 55% Flex 164% 57% 30.8 17.4 49% Advanced Micro Devices 152% 77% 52.4 33.1 59% Lam Research 140% 137% 51.3 32.1 50% Teradyne 139% 54% 54.0 36.7 63% Moderna 136% -29% N/A N/A 1% Lumentum Holdings 131% 339% 47.2 50.2 145% KLA 129% 93% 54.1 31.0 31% Coherent 112% 95% 46.7 31.7 44% Comfort Systems USA 109% 120% 40.0 30.7 61% Generac Holdings 108% -12% 28.0 16.4 22% Ciena 105% 176% 54.8 41.7 56% Source: LSEG
The table includes forward price/earnings valuations, which are the current prices divided by consensus 12-month EPS estimates among analysts polled by LSEG. The table also includes the P/E ratios as of the end of last year, and the right-most column shows how much the rolling 12-month EPS estimates have increased this year.
So for Sandisk $(SNDK)$ - the best performer among the S&P 500 so far this year - the forward P/E ratio has declined, despite a 764% increase in the company's stock price, because the rolling EPS estimates have increased even more quickly.
Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis raised his price target for Sandisk's stock to $3,000 in a note on Friday. The target implies 43% upside from the stock's closing price of $2,050.39 on Monday.
Curtis noted a recent TrendForce report on enterprise solid state drives that showed Sandisk's revenue share in that market rose to 8% from 4% in the last quarter.
"We would reiterate that [Sandisk] historically captured mid-teens share of the eSSD market, and we continue to view this as a real possibility," Curtis wrote.
Sandisk is gaining traction with its triple-level cell memory, a type of NAND flash memory used in SSDs, according to Curtis, and is expected to launch its Stargate quad-level cell eSSDs soon.
Micron $(MU)$ has been the second-best performer in the S&P 500 so far this year. It has the lowest forward P/E on the list above, and the ratio has only increased slightly this year as the rolling EPS estimate has come close to keeping pace with the price increase. Micron's forward P/E of 8.1 compares with a forward P/E of 20.3 for the S&P 500 and 22.8 for the S&P 500 IT sector.
Micron's low P/E reflects investors' concern over the traditional cyclicality of its business. Less than three years ago, the company reported a 49% decline in sales for its fiscal 2023, which ended on Aug. 31 that year, along with a fiscal-year net loss of $5.83 billion.
Last week, Micron's stock soared after CEO Sanjay Mehrotra announced new customer agreements that he expected would "significantly enhance the durability and predictability" of the company's financial performance.
Recent Micron coverage:
-- Micron's stock is still dirt cheap. Some analysts say that's about to change.
-- Micron is about to be more profitable than any U.S. company except Nvidia and Google
There is no 2025 price change on the table for Sandisk, because that company was spun off from Western Digital $(WDC)$ in February of last year.
Western Digital and Seagate Technology $(STX)$ dominate the data storage market with hard disk drives and solid-state drives that are in high demand to support AI data centers.
Intel $(INTC)$ ranks fourth with a 2026 gain of 257%.
The three stocks among this year's 20 best S&P 500 performers that aren't in the information technology sector are Moderna (MRNA), which is in the healthcare sector, and Generac $(GNRC)$ and Comfort Systems USA $(FIX)$, which are both in the industrial sector.
Sectors
Here is a breakdown of how the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 have performed this year, with the full index at the bottom. This table also compares current weighted forward P/E ratios with those at the end of 2025.
Sector or index 2026 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31
Energy 18.7% 12.7 15.6
Industrials 17.9% 25.5 24.2
Information Technology 16.5% 22.8 26.8
Real Estate 12.1% 36.0 35.2
Materials 10.5% 17.5 19.3
Consumer Staples 8.3% 21.8 20.9
Utilities 7.8% 17.6 17.9
Healthcare 3.9% 17.1 18.4
Communication Services 0.4% 19.7 22.2
Consumer Discretionary -1.2% 25.4 29.8
Financial -1.9% 15.0 16.7
S&P 500 Index 8.7% 20.3 22.5
Source: LSEG
The energy sector has been the strongest performer so far this year because of supply disruptions caused by the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran.
For the full S&P 500, the forward P/E ratio has declined to a weighted 20.3 from 22.5 at the end of last year. These valuations have declined in all of the index's sectors except in the industrial, real estate and consumer staples sectors.
-Philip van Doorn -Britney Nguyen
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 30, 2026 07:34 ET (11:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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