Top-Performing U.S. Stocks of the Year: Will the Rally Continue in 2026?

In 2025, the U.S. stock market continued its strong momentum amidst volatility and fervor, with the three major indices frequently reaching new historical highs. As of December 16th, the $DJIA(.DJI)$   has accumulated a nearly 14% increase for the year, the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$   has surged over 19%, and the $S&P 500(.SPX)$   has also risen nearly 16%.

At the macro level, "tariffs" and "rate cuts" became the main themes of trading throughout the year. After Trump's return to the White House, the US-China tariff policies briefly caused market panic, leading to the prevalence of "TACO trading." However, after several rounds of negotiations between China and the U.S., both sides officially reached a consensus on November 10, 2025, and announced a one-year suspension of new tariffs.

The Federal Reserve implemented three consecutive rate cuts in its FOMC meetings in September, October, and December. However, there is increasing divergence among officials regarding inflation and rate cuts. The new Federal Reserve Chair will be announced in January of next year, making the direction of monetary policy a major focus for the market.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence narratives continue to dominate market trends. From the stunning debut of Sora at the beginning of the year to the phenomenal popularity of "Nano Banana" by year-end, the market focus has shifted from the "OpenAI chain" to the "Google chain," from $NVIDIA(NVDA)$   's GPUs to $Alphabet(GOOG)$  's TPUs, and from simply computing power to concerns over shortages of electricity and storage capacity.

However, discussions about an "AI bubble" are heating up. Oracle and Broadcom's earnings reports have continuously received a lukewarm response, and there are ongoing concerns about "circular trading" among entities like OpenAI, as well as issues related to GPU depreciation. These signs indicate that investors are no longer blindly buying into the capital expenditure stories of tech giants but are beginning to focus on the commercial returns of AI applications.

Standing at the end of 2025, which stocks have stood out in the turbulent market? Let's review the top ten performing stocks of the year and the performance of the giants in the U.S. stock market.

As AI large models demonstrate exponential growth in data processing speeds, a shortage of storage chips has emerged, leading to continuous price increases and ushering in a "super cycle" in the industry. Storage chip manufacturer $SanDisk Corp (SNDK.US)$ topped the list of the best performing U.S. stocks in 2025 with a 488% increase. The company, which only officially listed on the U.S. stock market in February this year, is the fifth largest manufacturer in the global NAND market.

Following closely are $Western Digital (WDC.US)$ and $Seagate Technology (STX.US)$, with annual gains of 292% and 238%, respectively. Both companies were recently added to the NASDAQ 100 index components.

Electricity is another major bottleneck in the construction of AI data centers, $Bloom Energy (BE.US)$, a leader in fuel cells, has surged 327% this year. To address the surging demand for AI computing power, tech giants are shifting towards the concept of "space data centers." Space stocks such as $EchoStar (SATS.US)$ and $AST SpaceMobile (ASTS.US)$ have performed impressively this year, recording gains of 368% and 263%, respectively.

Top Gainers in US Maga-caps

Among the mega-caps in the U.S. stock market, AI-related stocks have also shown impressive performance. $Micron Technology (MU.US)$, a leader in storage chips, $Lam Research (LRCX.US)$, a giant in semiconductor equipment, and Advanced Micro Devices, known as "Nvidia's strongest challenger," have experienced yearly gains of 187%, 124%, and 74%, respectively.

The faster-than-expected growth in cloud computing services has driven $Alibaba (BABA.US)$'s stock price up by 86.71% this year, while Google leads the rise among the Magnificent seven of the U.S. stock market, with an increase of 64.03% since the beginning of the year.

Additionally, the stock prices of software star stocks $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ and $Applovin (APP.US)$ have also surged by 142% and 107%, respectively.

Looking ahead to 2026, Wall Street generally believes that the rally in U.S. stocks may continue, but it might not be dominated by tech giants alone. Market rotation is expected to become the new main investment theme. Goldman Sachs forecasts that in 2026, an acceleration in U.S. economic growth will most significantly boost EPS growth in cyclical industries, including the industrial, materials, and Consumer discretionary sectors.

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