S&P 500 ETF Enters Bull Market: 5 Best Stocks YTD
Nasdaq The S&P 500 entered a new bull market, ending the longest bear streak since the 1940s. The surge in mega-cap tech stocks, easing inflation, stronger-than-expected corporate earnings and hopes that the Fed is nearing the end of its interest rate-hike cycle have helped the index to recover from the lows seen in October last year.
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, the proxy version of the S&P 500 Index, has jumped about 12%. Nearly half the stocks in the index have declined, with most of the winners concentrated on the tech sector with just a small group of stocks, including Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia NVDA, Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms META and Tesla TSLA. Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett calls these stocks the Magnificent Seven, which accounted for 90% of the gains in the S&P 500 so far this year (read: Nvidia Hits Trillion-Dollar Market Cap: 5 ETFs to Track).
The artificial intelligence (AI) boost has also pushed Marvell Technology (MRVL), and American Micro Devices AMD higher. Apart from the tech sector, Royal Caribbean Cruises RCL made it to the top five best-performing stocks on the index.