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All three of the major U.S. stock indexes hit records Friday, and the Nasdaq Composite Index might reach its next milestone — 15,000 — next week.
Below is a list of stocks whose gains have powered the Nasdaq Composite Index’s
COMP,
gains this year, along with another list of analysts’ favorite stocks among the Nasdaq-100 Index
NDX,
Here’s a summary of Friday’s action:
-
The S&P 500 Index
SPX,
+1.01%
rose to another intraday record high and closed at 4,411.79, for gains of 1% on the day and 16.3% for 2021, following an advance of 16.3% in 2020. -
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.68%
closed above 35,000 for the first time, up 0.7% for the session at 25,061.55. The index has gained 14.6% in 2021, following last year’s 7.2% increase. - The Nasdaq Composite Index also set an intraday record Friday and closed at 14,836.99 for a gain of 1%. The index is now up 15.1% for 2021, following a surge of 43.6% in 2020.
- The Nasdaq-100 Index hit its own intraday record high and closed with an advance of 1.1%. It has risen 17.3% this year, following a gain of 47.6% in 2020.
(Note: All price changes in this article exclude dividends.)
Nasdaq-100 winners for 2021
The Nasdaq-100 Index is made up of the 100 largest non-financial companies by market capitalization in the full Nasdaq Composite Index. It is reconstituted each year in December. Both indexes are weighted by market cap, and the Nasdaq-100’s market cap of $17.21 trillion is about 73% of the full index. So most of the full Nasdaq’s performance is represented by the Nasdaq-100, which is tracked by the Invesco QQQ Trust
QQQ,
Here are the 10 stocks among the Nasdaq-100 that have risen the most during 2021 through July 23:
| Company | Price change – 2021 | Price change – July 23 | 52-week high | Date of 52-week high | Decline from 52-week high |
|
Moderna Inc. MRNA, |
233.9% | 7.8% | $349.45 | 07/23/2021 | -0.2% |
|
Applied Materials Inc. AMAT, |
60.4% | 0.9% | $146.00 | 04/05/2021 | -5.2% |
|
Alphabet Inc. Class C GOOG, |
57.3% | 3.4% | $2,776.17 | 07/23/2021 | -0.7% |
|
ASML Holding NV ADR ASML, |
53.4% | 2.5% | $756.78 | 07/23/2021 | -1.1% |
|
Alphabet Inc. Class A GOOGL, |
51.8% | 3.6% | $2,667.98 | 07/23/2021 | -0.3% |
| Nvidia Corp. | 49.8% | -0.2% | $208.75 | 07/07/2021 | -6.3% |
|
EBay Inc. EBAY, |
46.3% | 2.1% | $73.77 | 07/23/2021 | -0.3% |
|
Intuit Inc. INTU, |
39.1% | 1.4% | $532.33 | 07/23/2021 | -0.7% |
|
Idexx Laboratories Inc. IDXX, |
38.8% | 1.6% | $696.35 | 07/23/2021 | -0.4% |
|
DocuSign Inc. DOCU, |
38.8% | 0.2% | $310.51 | 07/22/2021 | -0.6% |
|
CDW Corp. CDW, |
37.3% | 2.0% | $184.58 | 04/16/2021 | -2.0% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
Actually, there are 11 stocks on the list because the index includes Alphabet Inc.’s Class C
GOOG,
and Class A
GOOGL,
shares.
Seven of those stocks hit 52-week highs July 23.
Wall Street’s favorite stocks in the Nasdaq-100
Here are the 10 stocks in the Nasdaq-100 with “buy” or equivalent ratings among at least 75% of analysts polled by FactSet, with the most 12-month upside potential implied by consensus price targets:
| Company | Share “buy” ratings | Closing price – July 23 | Consensus price target | Implied 12-month upside potential | Price change – July 23 | Price change – 2021 |
|
Baidu Inc. ADR Class A BIDU, |
86% | $172.66 | $311.92 | 81% | -3.3% | -20.2% |
|
Micron Technology Inc. MU, |
88% | $75.94 | $121.25 | 60% | 0.5% | 1.0% |
|
JD.com Inc. ADR Class A JD, |
91% | $72.29 | $98.15 | 36% | -4.8% | -17.8% |
| NetEase Inc. ADR | 86% | $103.53 | $134.54 | 30% | -8.0% | 8.1% |
|
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRTX, |
78% | $200.50 | $259.71 | 30% | 2.3% | -15.2% |
|
Microchip Technology Inc. MCHP, |
76% | $139.22 | $177.14 | 27% | 0.6% | 0.8% |
|
Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI, |
88% | $91.50 | $116.09 | 27% | 1.1% | -1.5% |
|
Fiserv Inc. FISV, |
85% | $111.79 | $141.27 | 26% | 1.6% | -1.8% |
|
MercadoLibre Inc. MELI, |
78% | $1,613.81 | $2,021.37 | 25% | 1.4% | -3.7% |
|
Netflix Inc. NFLX, |
78% | $515.41 | $619.67 | 20% | 0.7% | -4.7% |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. took a beating Friday, and you can see from the three on this list (Baidu Inc.
BIDU,
JD.com Inc.
JD,
and NetEase Inc.
NTES,
) that this hasn’t been a good year for the group. Therese Poletti explained why.
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