2026 has presented significant volatility for major stock market indexes. Geopolitical tensions involving Iran threatened the global supply of oil, driving energy prices higher and unsettling investors. Treasury yields have also surged, leading to renewed concerns about the prospect of further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
Conversely, investors quickly rallied on news—or even rumors—of progress toward peace deals, as well as economic data suggesting how the Fed might adjust policy. The technology sector provided fundamental strength to the market throughout the year, though it also added a substantial degree of volatility.
The following section lists the best-performing S&P 500 stocks based on one-year returns.
| Ticker | Company | Performance (Year) |
|---|---|---|
| SNDK | Sandisk Corp | 1,135.15% |
| MRNA | Moderna Inc | 700.15% |
| LITE | Lumentum Holdings Inc | 597.07% |
| MU | Micron Technology Inc | 435.81% |
| DELL | Dell Technologies Inc | 272.78% |
| STX | Seagate Technology Holdings Plc | 254.39% |
| WDC | Western Digital Corp | 231.04% |
| BE | Bloom Energy Corp | 220.21% |
| MRVL | Marvell Technology Inc | 201.28% |
| ILMN | Illumina Inc | 185.89% |
| INTC | Intel Corp | 179.37% |
| HPE | Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co | 177.41% |
| TER | Teradyne Inc | 177.13% |
| CIEN | CIENA Corp | 176.40% |
| VLO | Valero Energy Corp | 173.53% |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices Inc | 162.14% |
| TWLO | Twilio Inc | 155.86% |
| COHR | Coherent Corp | 152.99% |
| MPC | Marathon Petroleum Corp | 146.36% |
| AMAT | Applied Materials Inc | 130.60% |
Source: Finviz. Data is current as of October 9, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only.
While these are currently the best stocks in the S&P 500 based on one-year performance, that does not necessarily make them the best stocks to invest in. Predicting the future of even the current top performers is a challenge that professionals have yet to master. Additionally, the best stocks for your portfolio are not necessarily the best stocks for someone else’s.
For example, a young investor looking to aggressively grow retirement savings, given they have time to ride out market highs and lows, might gravitate toward growth stocks for their high-risk, high-reward volatility. On the other hand, a retiree seeking passive income might prefer predictable dividend stocks like the dividend aristocrats, which are relatively stable and typically increase their dividend payments over time.
How to find the best stocks for your portfolio
Choosing good stocks for your portfolio can be a time-consuming task, requiring you to look beyond performance metrics. While it is a good sign if a stock can outperform during periods of market volatility and broad declines—such as in 2022, the last year the S&P 500 saw an annual decline—there are numerous other factors to consider.
Beyond your personal risk tolerance and investment horizon, strategic investors conduct significant research on a company before buying its stock. They perform fundamental analysis, looking at the company’s financial statements and considering how economic factors might influence the stock’s future performance.
Many investors also perform technical analysis, which involves analyzing historical price movements to predict future trends. If you want to pursue this route, detailed overviews are available on how to research stocks and read stock charts, including key terms to know.
How much of your portfolio should be in individual stocks?
The ideal portfolio composition varies from person to person. Some prefer to keep things simple and invest exclusively in index funds, and advisors often recommend keeping at least some of your portfolio in diversified funds. However, there can also be a place for individual stocks; the question is how much of your portfolio they should make up.
Two common rules of thumb are used to answer this, appealing to investors with different risk tolerances.
The first rule, suitable for investors comfortable with some risk who like to invest heavily in individual stocks, is to invest no more than 10% of your overall portfolio in a single stock. As far as risk management goes, this is the bare-minimum standard.
Individual stocks sometimes experience big drops—10% in a single day is not unheard of—and if you’re investing heavily in them, this rule limits the damage a decline in a single stock can do to your overall portfolio. (You can even use stop-loss orders to automatically sell a stock that drops 10% or more. If you combine this with the no-more-than-10%-per-stock rule, you’ve built a system where no investment can shave more than 1% off your overall portfolio per day.)
The other rule of thumb, which is more conservative and better for hands-off or beginner investors, is to invest no more than 10% of your portfolio in individual stocks overall, and leave the other 90% in index funds.
This approach limits the amount of damage a decline in any individual stock can cause, though it also limits your chances of substantially beating the market. If you follow the 90%-index-funds rule, you’ll mostly earn the market rate of return, but you’ll have some capital to trade individual stocks, giving you the opportunity to slightly outperform (or slightly underperform) an index-funds-only investor.
What are the best platforms for trading individual stocks?
There are a wide variety of stock trading platforms, each with different features that appeal to investors with varying interests and skill levels.
Two features are particularly valuable for making individual stock trading accessible to a wide range of investors, and fortunately, both are common nowadays: Extended hours trading and fractional share trading.
Extended hours trading makes it possible to buy stocks outside normal market hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time), which is a major convenience if you’re located on the West Coast or outside the U.S.
Fractional share trading makes it possible to buy less than one full share of a stock, which is beneficial for low-budget or beginner investors, given that some of the stocks in the table above have share prices over $1,000 (thanks to their strong performance).
Below is a list of brokers reviewed by NerdWallet that offer both extended hours trading and fractional share trading on almost all stocks.
One caveat: Some brokers don’t offer fractional shares during extended hours. Robinhood, for example, only allows whole-share trades on most securities outside normal market hours, although it also allows you to queue up a fractional share order for the next trading day.
For more information on brokers working to make stock trading more accessible, check out our roundup of the best brokers for beginners.
Neither the author nor editor held positions in the aforementioned investments at the time of publication.
About the authors
Arielle O’Shea leads the investing, advisory and taxes content teams at NerdWallet. She has covered personal finance and investing for 20 years, and was a senior writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet before becoming an editor. Previously, she was a researcher and reporter for leading personal finance journalist and author Jean Chatzky, a role that included developing financial education programs, interviewing subject matter experts and helping to produce television and radio segments. Arielle has appeared on the “Today” show, NBC News and ABC’s “World News Tonight,” and has been quoted in national publications including The New York Times, MarketWatch and Bloomberg News. She is based in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Chris Davis is a Managing Editor on the Investing team. He has passed the Series 65 (Uniform Investment Adviser Law Exam) and covered the stock market, investing strategies, investment accounts and cryptocurrency. His work has appeared in The Associated Press, The Washington Post, MSN, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Newsday and TheStreet.
