These are the best-performing stocks in the 2023 bull market — and the worst

First, take a look at the S&P 500’s price chart from the end of 2021 through Thursday:

All price changes in this article exclude dividends. We still have a way to go to get back to where the S&P 500
SPX
was before it fell 19% in 2021. The benchmark index is down 8% from then.

Here’s how the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 and four broad indexes have performed during the first half of 2023, with changes to their weighted forward price-to-earnings ratios:

Among the S&P 500, 58% of stocks have risen this year.

Information technology has been the strongest performer among the S&P 500 sectors this year, but it is important to note that two important tech players, Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL

GOOG
and Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
are placed in the communications-services sector by S&P, while Amazon.com Inc. is the largest company by market capitalization in the consumer-discretionary sector.

The S&P 500 is weighted by market cap, which means five companies (including two common share classes for Alphabet) make up nearly 24% of the $415 billion SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
SPY,
which tracks the benchmark index.

Here’s how shares of these five companies have performed this year:

Click on the ticker symbols for more about each company, ETF or index.

Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

Here is a chart showing milestones over the past decade as Apple Inc.
AAPL
has moved close to a market value of $3 trillion.

With more investors growing aware of how concentrated the S&P 500 has become, there has been a significant inflow of money into an equal-weighted index strategy over recent weeks.

Best and worst performers in the broad indexes

Here are the top 10 performers among the S&P 500 during the first half of 2023:

And here are this year’s worst performers among the S&P 500:

For a heavier technology concentration, investors can look to the Nasdaq-100 Index
NDX,
which is tracked by the Invesco QQQ Trust
QQQ
and holds shares of the largest 100 nonfinancial companies in the full Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
by market cap.

Here are this year’s best 10 performers among the Nasdaq-100:

And here at the 10 components of the Nasdaq-100 showing the largest declines this year:

The Nasdaq-100 on Thursday was on pace to notch its best-ever first half to a calendar year.

And now for the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
; Here’s how all 30 of its components have performed during the first half of 2023:

Read on:

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