Where The Buying Ran Strongest: 26 S&P 500 Stocks At 52-Week Highs
Financials dominate today’s list of market leaders, raising questions about price and performance.
Strength in the financial sector is the clear theme today, with Asset Management & Custody Banks and Diversified Banks accounting for several names on the list. As of Tuesday, July 14, 26 S&P 500 stocks are at their 52-week highs, led by the market’s largest banks.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM), with a market value of about $931.4 billion, is the largest company making a new high. Both it and Bank of America (BAC) saw their stocks gain 9.9% over the last month, far outpacing the S&P 500’s 1.9% return. This raises a key question: does the underlying business growth of these giants justify their new market peaks? The full list follows.
The Complete 52-Week-High List
The table below shows the 10 largest of the 26 names, sorted by market capitalization, with returns over four windows:
| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPM | $931.4 Bil | 2.5% | 1.1% | 9.9% | 21.8% |
| BAC | $439.9 Bil | 1.9% | 1.3% | 9.9% | 32.5% |
| MS | $355.4 Bil | 3.0% | 2.5% | 7.1% | 63.9% |
| GS | $346.3 Bil | 9.0% | 9.3% | 10.1% | 65.0% |
| CVS | $135.2 Bil | 0.3% | 1.8% | 5.7% | 69.9% |
| FTNT | $123.3 Bil | 3.9% | 5.1% | 15.0% | 68.4% |
| BNY | $106.8 Bil | 2.1% | 1.0% | 8.7% | |
| MNST | $95.9 Bil | 1.0% | 1.1% | 6.5% | 66.6% |
| ELV | $93.8 Bil | 0.4% | 1.9% | 6.9% | 27.9% |
| CSX | $92.9 Bil | 0.6% | 2.9% | 5.4% | 48.5% |
Are these higher multiples earned by higher growth?
The largest banks on the list show a clear trade-off between valuation and expansion. Morgan Stanley (MS) trades at 19.6 times trailing earnings, a high multiple for the group. That price is matched by its revenue, which grew 14.8% over the last twelve months.
In contrast, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) trades at a more modest 15.8 times trailing earnings, while its revenue grew 8.2% over the same period. The data shows that even within a strong sector, the market is pricing company performance differently.
A new high is a price, not a verdict.
A list of stocks at their strongest prices of the year is a useful screen for what is working in the market. Strength often signals a healthy, growing business that others have recognized.
But a price is simply what someone was willing to pay, not a final assessment of a company’s intrinsic value. The disciplined move is to treat a 52-week high as a starting point. The real work is checking whether the business fundamentals, from revenue growth to margins, can support the new altitude.
A new high tells you what the market already believes. The harder question is which of these runs management itself is underwriting. Our Guidance Momentum screen tracks exactly that: stocks where the company raised its own forward numbers.
New Highs Grow Positions Faster Than Plans Do
A new high is real progress, and it is also how winners grow into outsized positions. How much damage any single position could do to your net worth is a question with a precise answer. The Trefis Wealth team computes it for investors professionally, with the same rules-based systematic discipline that runs our High Quality Portfolio. Request a free vulnerability audit of your biggest positions.