MW U.S. stocks are up this year even as tech slides, with some already rallying more than 10%
By Christine Idzelis
Bespoke found 22 S&P 500 stocks climbed more than 10% over the first four trading days of 2026
The S&P 500 ended Thursday just 0.3% below its record closing high.
The U.S. stock market has climbed this year even with the S&P 500's technology sector posting losses, in a positive sign of the broadening rally in early 2026.
While there has been a lot of investor fear around the U.S. stock market's historically high valuation as the S&P 500 SPX trades around record highs, valuation alone doesn't impact the next year's returns, said JP Coviello, head of portfolio strategy at Citi Wealth, in a phone interview Thursday. The S&P 500's valuation is justified by its composition today, which is heavily weighted in Big Tech companies with "tremendous" profit margins and earnings growth, he said.
Tech XX:SP500.45 is the S&P 500 index's biggest sector by far, with its 23.3% surge last year fueling the index's 16.4% gain in 2025, according to FactSet data. By contrast, the S&P 500 has risen 1.1% this year through Thursday - even as tech is down 0.9% over the same stretch.
This year, "breadth in the market has been positive," with 316 of the index's 500 components up through Jan. 7, Bespoke Investment Group said in an emailed note on Thursday. That included 22 stocks climbing more than 10% through that date and none down by the same percentage, the firm's research found.
Bespoke tracked the performance of the S&P 500's 11 sectors through Jan. 7, with the biggest gains coming from materials and healthcare, each rallying 3.1%. Tech lagged with a 0.7% rise through that date, as seen in the chart below.
BESPOKE INVESTMENT GROUP
Then on Thursday, tech slid a sharp 1.5% to join utilities XX:SP500.55 in the red so far in 2026, while consumer staples and real estate climbed back into positive territory year to date, according to FactSet data. Nine of the S&P 500's sectors are up now up this year through Thursday, led by materials XX:SP500.15 with a strong 4.5% gain.
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The U.S. stock market closed mixed Thursday, with the S&P 500 edging up less than 0.1% to end nearly flat, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA climbing 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP falling 0.4%. The S&P 500 finished Thursday just 0.3% below its record closing high on Jan. 6, according to Dow Jones Market data.
Stocks with double-digit percentage gains in the S&P 500 this year through Thursday include Sandisk Corp. $(SNDK)$, Valero Energy Corp. $(VLO)$, Lam Research Corp. $(LRCX)$, SLB Ltd. $(SLB)$, Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP), Moderna Inc. (MRNA), Micron Technology Inc.$(MU)$, Centene Corp. $(CNC)$, Halliburton Co. $(HAL)$ and Aptiv Plc $(APTV)$, according to FactSet data.
"January can be a bit volatile as people reposition" for the new year, Coviello said. "Stick to where the fundamentals are strong."
Coviello said he favors tech stocks in the U.S. but that he also likes industrials for their exposure to the artificial-intelligence boom. Niche industrial suppliers may be the "next wave of opportunity" in the AI buildout as providers of "automated systems," Coviello said.
As for other sectors in the stock market, he said that he still favors financials XX:SP500.40, partly because growth in the U.S. remains "robust," the labor market appears "stable" and the Federal Reserve's interest rate-cutting cycle is supportive to the economy.
-Christine Idzelis
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 08, 2026 18:24 ET (23:24 GMT)
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