S&P 500 Movers | Winners: MRNA, EL, MRK | Losers: STX, STLD, WDC
A day of quiet averages hid some of the most extreme single-stock moves of the year.
Moderna (MRNA) gained +177.0% in a single session. On a day the S&P 500 itself barely moved, returning just +0.2%, that extreme divergence raises the most important question for any daily tape-watcher: what separates a stock from the market, and is that separation a sudden event or part of a larger story? The day’s full leaderboard of winners and losers follows.
Wednesday’s S&P 500 Winners
The 10 stocks with the highest returns on the last trading day:
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-D Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MRNA | Moderna | 177.0% | 491.3% |
| 2 | EL | Estee Lauder Companies | 16.3% | -5.8% |
| 3 | MRK | Merck | 12.6% | 46.7% |
| 4 | ARE | Alexandria Real Estate Equities | 10.3% | 6.3% |
| 5 | MRVL | Marvell Technology | 9.8% | 179.6% |
| 6 | COIN | Coinbase Global | 9.6% | -29.2% |
| 7 | CVNA | Carvana | 8.4% | -16.5% |
| 8 | NEM | Newmont | 7.8% | 25.8% |
| 9 | FICO | Fair Isaac | 7.7% | -31.3% |
| 10 | CSGP | CoStar | 7.5% | -49.8% |
Wednesday’s S&P 500 Losers
And the 10 stocks with the lowest returns:
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-D Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | STX | Seagate Technology | -7.9% | 203.1% |
| 2 | STLD | Steel Dynamics | -7.5% | 37.1% |
| 3 | WDC | Western Digital | -6.9% | 168.4% |
| 4 | DELL | Dell Technologies | -6.6% | 250.8% |
| 5 | LRCX | Lam Research | -6.3% | 79.8% |
| 6 | KEYS | Keysight Technologies | -6.3% | 57.2% |
| 7 | COHR | Coherent | -6.2% | 55.8% |
| 8 | TER | Teradyne | -6.1% | 96.3% |
| 9 | FLEX | Flex | -6.0% | 87.1% |
| 10 | NUE | Nucor | -5.8% | 53.4% |
Is today’s biggest move a new story or an old one?
Persistence is the key pattern. Moderna (MRNA) was today’s strongest name, a position reinforced by its appearance on the one-month winners list with a return of +192.3%. The source data notes its strength is not a one-day event. This performance contrasts with its fundamentals, as its revenue declined 27.7% over the last twelve months.
The same pattern appears in the day’s losers. Western Digital (WDC) is on both the one-day and one-month losers lists, with a one-month return of -15.7%. The data confirms its weakness has been building for weeks.
Movers Over The Last Week
Widening the window to five trading days, these are the strongest and weakest S&P 500 names:
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-W Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MRNA | Moderna | 173.9% | 491.3% |
| 2 | CPRT | Copart | 16.8% | -13.5% |
| 3 | SNDK | SanDisk | 16.7% | 560.9% |
| 4 | MRK | Merck | 14.5% | 46.7% |
| 5 | WDAY | Workday | 13.2% | -7.6% |
| 6 | EL | Estee Lauder Companies | 11.8% | -5.8% |
| 7 | PSKY | Paramount Skydance | 11.6% | -20.1% |
| 8 | FICO | Fair Isaac | 11.2% | -31.3% |
| 9 | CSGP | CoStar | 10.6% | -49.8% |
| 10 | TRGP | Targa Resources | 10.6% | 63.4% |
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-W Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | COHR | Coherent | -19.2% | 55.8% |
| 2 | TPR | Tapestry | -14.3% | 3.7% |
| 3 | AVGO | Broadcom | -12.9% | 5.1% |
| 4 | STLD | Steel Dynamics | -12.2% | 37.1% |
| 5 | JBL | Jabil | -11.8% | 41.7% |
| 6 | ANET | Arista Networks | -11.4% | 42.3% |
| 7 | Q | Qnity Electronics | -11.3% | 54.5% |
| 8 | LITE | Lumentum | -11.2% | 124.5% |
| 9 | CSCO | Cisco Systems | -10.8% | 45.6% |
| 10 | KLAC | KLA | -10.0% | 54.7% |
Movers Over The Last Month
And over the last 21 trading days:
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-M Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MRNA | Moderna | 192.3% | 491.3% |
| 2 | SMCI | Super Micro Computer | 43.5% | 25.0% |
| 3 | IT | Gartner | 43.1% | -23.6% |
| 4 | WDAY | Workday | 40.6% | -7.6% |
| 5 | CTSH | Cognizant Technology Solutions | 40.5% | -25.3% |
| 6 | LDOS | Leidos | 39.4% | -18.4% |
| 7 | NEM | Newmont | 35.2% | 25.8% |
| 8 | ZBRA | Zebra Technologies | 35.2% | 46.1% |
| 9 | VEEV | Veeva Systems | 32.6% | 12.4% |
| 10 | CRL | Charles River Laboratories International | 32.2% | 45.4% |
| # | Ticker | Company Name | 1-M Returns |
YTD Returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHRW | C.H. Robinson Worldwide | -31.0% | -9.5% |
| 2 | APP | AppLovin | -27.5% | -53.9% |
| 3 | TTD | Trade Desk | -25.8% | -64.3% |
| 4 | DVA | DaVita | -25.3% | 56.0% |
| 5 | LII | Lennox International | -20.9% | -13.2% |
| 6 | RDDT | -18.4% | -34.0% | |
| 7 | NXPI | NXP Semiconductors | -17.3% | 5.0% |
| 8 | ROL | Rollins | -16.9% | -38.9% |
| 9 | ON | ON Semiconductor | -15.9% | 41.4% |
| 10 | WDC | Western Digital | -15.7% | 168.4% |
So how should an investor use these lists?
A movers list is a map of attention, not a set of instructions. A large daily move is simply information that the market is rapidly repricing a company’s prospects and risks. The names on the one-day, one-week, and one-month lists shown earlier are starting points for research, not finishing lines.
The disciplined follow-up is always to look past the ticker to the business itself. For today’s biggest loser, Seagate Technology (STX), which returned -7.9%, that would mean understanding a company that trades at 58.8 times trailing earnings while its revenue grew 34.1% over the last twelve months.
Either side of these lists can be a lead worth following, with the same follow-up question: does the business back the move? For the winners, our Guidance Momentum screen tracks which companies raised their own forward numbers. For the losers, our Buy the Dip screen flags which marked-down names still have the fundamentals to recover.
The Tape Rewards Attention. It Punishes Reaction
Big daily moves pull hard at both greed and fear, and acting on either, day after day, is how most portfolios end up trailing the index they were trying to beat.
The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is built for the opposite reflex: about 30 quality businesses screened for the fundamentals that survive volatile stretches, held with rules instead of reactions. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Read the movers daily; trade them rarely.