By Philip van Doorn and Britney Nguyen

The list is dominated by semiconductor and computer-hardware manufacturers

All of these stocks 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 this year.

The S&P 500 SPX has risen 9.5% this year to date, 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 years, according to LSEG.

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-to-earnings ratios.

These earnings increases have been the driver for stocks in the S&P 500's information-technology sector XX:SP500.45, many of which have seen triple-digit gains. The IT sector has been the second-best performer among the S&P 500's 11 sectors so far this year, and the index's top 10 stocks by price gains have all been in the tech sector. All but three of the index's top 20 performers are tech-sector names.

Within the S&P 500, 62% of stocks have shown gains this year. The winners list follows, but you can see a list of the year's worst performers here.

Below are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 whose prices have risen the most during the first half of 2026. (All price changes in this article exclude dividends.)

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 858% N/A 12.0 13.6 987% Micron Technology 304% 239% 8.1 7.9 294% Intel 278% 84% 103.8 61.2 123% Western Digital 271% 282% 35.0 19.6 107% Marvell Technology 251% -23% 60.2 24.0 40% Seagate Technology Holdings 250% 219% 34.6 20.5 107% Dell Technologies 243% 9% 21.2 11.1 79% Corning 192% 84% 68.8 28.2 19% Applied Materials 181% 58% 47.3 26.0 55% Advanced Micro Devices 171% 77% 56.4 33.1 59% Flex 168% 57% 31.3 17.4 49% Lam Research 153% 137% 54.1 32.1 50% Teradyne 150% 54% 56.4 36.7 63% KLA 148% 93% 58.7 31.0 31% Moderna 137% -29% N/A N/A 1% Lumentum Holdings 133% 339% 47.6 50.2 145% Generac Holdings 115% -12% 28.9 16.4 22% Coherent 114% 95% 47.1 31.7 44% Comfort Systems USA 112% 120% 40.6 30.7 61% Ciena 110% 176% 56.2 41.7 56% Source: LSEG

The table includes forward price-to-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, while 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 an 858% 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 32% upside from the stock's closing price of $2,273.73 on Tuesday.

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 midteens 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 the company 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 stock's 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 investor 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.

There is no 2025 price change on the table for Sandisk, as the company was only 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 third with a 2026 gain of 278%.

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 XX:SP500.35, and Generac (GNRC) and Comfort Systems USA (FIX), which are both in the industrials sector XX:SP500.20.

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 2026 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31 Industrials 19.5% 25.5 24.2 Information technology 19.4% 22.8 26.8 energy 18.0% 12.7 15.6 Materials 11.1% 17.5 19.3 Real estate 9.7% 36.0 35.2 Consumer staples 6.7% 21.8 20.9 Utilities 6.2% 17.6 17.9 Healthcare 2.5% 17.1 18.4 Communication services 0.4% 19.7 22.2 Consumer discretionary -1.1% 25.4 29.8 Financials -2.1% 15.0 16.7 S&P 500 9.5% 20.3 22.5 Source: LSEG

The energy sector XX:SP500.10 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 industrials, real-estate XX:SP500.60 and consumer staples XX:SP500.30 sectors.

-Philip van Doorn -Britney Nguyen

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