Three of the S&P 500's Five Best Stocks This Year Make AI Hardware
Sandisk, Dell and Micron are up 200% to 431% in 2026, behind only Moderna, while AppLovin has lost 60.8%, the worst in the index.
Three of the five best-performing S&P 500 stocks this year sell the hardware behind AI. Sandisk (SNDK), which makes flash memory, is up 431.2% since the end of 2025, by our count of the 500 index members with a full year of prices. Dell Technologies (DELL), which sells servers for AI data centers, is up 259.8%, and memory maker Micron Technology (MU) 200.1%.
Those gains survived a rough Thursday for chip stocks: Sandisk fell 8.5%, Dell 6.8% and Micron 6.3%. Moderna (MRNA) still leads at 587.1%, even after a 17.6% drop when results from its melanoma-vaccine trial with Merck appeared online two days early. Refiner Marathon Petroleum (MPC) is fifth.
At the bottom, AppLovin (APP) has lost 60.8%, followed by Boston Scientific (BSX), Fair Isaac (FICO), Lululemon (LULU) and Insulet (PODD).
What to watch: Moderna and Merck present the full melanoma results at the ESMO cancer conference on Saturday, 24 October, and Sandisk reports quarterly results on 29 October.
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Mostly Markets is for information and education only and isn't investment advice. Nora Whitfield is a pen name. Prices are from Nasdaq and CNBC as of the time stated.
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