The S&P 500's 50 best stocks of 2026 fell 4.2% on Monday. Its 50 worst rose 2.1%.
Published · 2 min read
On 2 November only 6 of the year's 50 best S&P 500 stocks rose, while 41 of the 50 worst did. Ten of those winners were energy stocks, not tech.
The 50 best-performing S&P 500 stocks of 2026 fell an average of 4.2% on Monday, and only 6 of them rose. The 50 worst performers of the year rose an average of 2.1%, and 41 of them finished up. The index itself fell 0.47%, market-cap weighted, even though 343 of the 496 stocks we could rank closed higher.
It was not only tech
The headlines were about chips and AI, and technology does make up 21 of the year's top 50. But 10 of them are energy stocks, led by refiners $MPC, $VLO and $PSX, which were up 119% to 173% for the year at Friday's close. All 10 fell on Monday, the day NBC News reported oil's biggest drop since July. Nine are healthcare names. What the losers had in common was how far they had already run.
Those 50 stocks lost $388 billion of market value between them. The S&P 500 as a whole lost $322 billion, so the rest of the index added value on balance.
The pattern ran all the way down
Split the index into fifths by 2026 return, and each fifth did better on Monday than the one above it.
| 2026 return at Friday's close | Avg. move Monday | Stocks up |
|---|---|---|
| Top fifth (+32% to +652%) | -2.58% | 25 of 99 |
| Second (+15% to +32%) | +0.59% | 66 of 99 |
| Middle (+4% to +15%) | +1.09% | 83 of 99 |
| Fourth (-10% to +4%) | +1.78% | 84 of 99 |
| Bottom fifth (-66% to -11%) | +2.50% | 85 of 100 |
Days like this are not rare this year. Measured the same way, the gap between the top 50 and bottom 50 was wider on seven other sessions in 2026, most recently on 22 October. Monday was also the third session in a row in which the year's top 50 did worse than its bottom 50.
Year-to-date returns are measured from each stock's 31 December 2025 close to its 30 October 2026 close. Monday's moves are the ones shown on the treemap.
See it on the site
Sources
- S&P 500 ends down; Apple dips ahead of quarterly report — Reuters (2 Nov 2026)
- October dive for AI-related shares tests broader US stock market's resilience — Reuters (2 Nov 2026)
- Nasdaq 100 Enters Correction as Megacap Results Amplify AI Fears — Bloomberg (2 Nov 2026)
- Oil prices slide in biggest drop since July on hope for more Iran talks — NBC News (2 Nov 2026)
- Lower Oil Prices Take Energy Stocks Down With Them — Barron's (2 Nov 2026)
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