Is Gilead Stock Increasing Your Market Risk?

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If you own Gilead Sciences (GILD) or plan to buy it, you are investing in a drug maker whose HIV treatment Biktarvy brought in $14.3 billion of its $29.4 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue. Because you likely hold the stock beside an S&P 500 fund, what matters for your money is whether Gilead moves with that fund or on its own. On the days the market falls, does Gilead fall with it?

Gilead Stock Has Barely Followed The Market Down

The stock hardly followed the market down at all in the year to October 26, 2026. On the S&P 500’s average down day, a fall of 0.597%, a $10,000 holding in Gilead lost about $1.23. On the index’s average up day, a rise of 0.638%, that same holding gained about $24. Gilead added almost nothing to the market’s losses and only a little to its gains.

That does not make Gilead a quiet stock. Its volatility, a measure of how widely the price swings over a year, was 26.8% in that year, more than twice the index’s 12.7%. Yet across all days, Gilead moved only about 0.32% for each 1% move in the index. It also moved far less on down days than on up days. And as the correlation below shows, most of Gilead’s swings had little to do with the market’s.

Gilead did not always hold up when the market was weak, though. In March 2026, the index’s weakest full month of the past year, Gilead fell 6.4%, more than the S&P 500’s 5.1%. On an ordinary day, Gilead added little to the market risk you already carry while bringing wide moves of its own.

Will Gilead Keep Moving Apart From The Market?

Probably, because Gilead is a business in the middle of a change. Management said on the August 4, 2026 call that Gilead had bought Arcellx, Tubulis and Ouro Medicines. In fiscal Q2 2026, the company recorded $11.2 billion of costs for the drug programs it acquired and posted a loss for the quarter because of those deals.

More decisions are still ahead. Management said on that call that the FDA’s decision on anito-cel, a treatment for multiple myeloma, is due by December 23, 2026. A company paying for drugs still in development while it waits on regulators for others is likely to keep making large moves of its own. Over the past year, Gilead’s daily moves had little in common with the index’s. Their correlation, a score from minus 1 to 1 of how closely two prices move together, was 0.15.

Gilead Has Earned More Per Swing Than The Index

In the five years to October 26, 2026, Gilead returned 23.2% a year with dividends, against 12.6% for the S&P 500. Gilead’s price swung more along the way, with a volatility of 25.0% a year against the index’s 17.0%. Dividing the return by the volatility shows how much return each unit of swing has earned: 0.928 for Gilead, against 0.741 for the index. Over those five years, you were paid better for Gilead’s wider swings than for the market’s.

If the past year holds, Gilead on average adds a little to your gains on the days the market rises and takes almost nothing away on the days it falls. Any single day can still bring a large move of its own. In place of market risk, you carry Gilead’s own risk: a bet on Biktarvy, on drug approvals and on the companies it has just bought. If you already own other drug makers or a biotech fund, you already hold that kind of bet, and Gilead adds to it rather than spreading your risk.

Is Too Much Of Your Wealth Riding On One Stock?

A single stock like Gilead Sciences can make a portfolio’s good and bad days bigger. When one position grows into a large part of your wealth, a sharp fall can hurt your whole plan, and selling to spread the money out can bring a large tax bill. Our partner advisory firm offers a free strategy review of ways to protect a concentrated position and unwind it with less tax.

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