9 S&P 500 Stocks Just Made New 52-Week Highs
A narrow list of market highs shows a heavy concentration in a single part of the economy.
Just 9 S&P 500 stocks are trading at their 52-week highs as of Tuesday, and the list is dominated by a single theme. Of those nine names, 5 are from the Energy sector. The concentration raises a key question for any investor looking at new strength: is the business performance keeping pace with the price?
Below is the full list of S&P 500 companies at their strongest price of the past year.
The Full List, Largest First
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Here are all 9 names, sorted by market capitalization, with returns over four windows:
| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVX | $415.74 Bil | 2.4% | 5.6% | 10.2% | 36.6% |
| VZ | $209.65 Bil | 0.6% | 0.1% | 6.2% | 21.5% |
| DE | $182.61 Bil | 3.2% | 7.2% | 11.7% | 43.0% |
| COP | $165.26 Bil | 2.8% | 3.3% | 15.1% | 41.9% |
| MPC | $110.69 Bil | 2.6% | 7.9% | 25.1% | 116.7% |
| VLO | $106.43 Bil | 0.9% | 6.3% | 17.7% | 143.2% |
| PSX | $101.05 Bil | 2.2% | 6.4% | 22.9% | 94.3% |
| MSI | $81.45 Bil | 1.2% | 1.2% | 12.4% | 5.1% |
| HPQ | $28.88 Bil | 4.3% | 6.1% | 15.5% | 15.4% |
Which names show business growth to match the price?
Marathon Petroleum (MPC) posted the strongest one-month run on the list, up 25.1% while the S&P 500 returned +0.5%. The company’s revenue grew 15.0% over the last twelve months, with an operating margin of 7.5%. It currently trades at 12.9 times trailing earnings.
For comparison, Chevron (CVX), the largest company on the list with a market value of about $415.7 billion, gained 10.2% over the last month. Over the last twelve months, its revenue grew 11.2% and its operating margin was 12.4%. Chevron trades at 20.2 times trailing earnings.
So how should an investor use this list?
A 52-week-high list is a map of what is working right now, and strength often persists. But a high is a price, not a verdict on a business. It is the beginning of a question, not the end of one.
The disciplined move is always the same: to check whether the underlying business fundamentals appear to earn the new valuation. The price is an opinion; the numbers are the ground truth.
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.
One more pattern worth noticing: 5 of the 9 names are Energy stocks. When a whole group is making new highs together, an energy ETF like XLE, which holds 5 of these names, is one way to own part of the group’s strength without betting on which single name leads it from here.
Strength Is A Clue. It Is Not A Plan
A stock at its 52-week high has momentum on its side, and momentum is a real force. It is also the most crowded signal in the market, and the difference between a run that lasts and one that tops is always the business underneath.
Checking that business, across thousands of names, is how the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is assembled: roughly 30 companies that pass the quality screens, rebalanced on rules. 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. Let the highs point; let the discipline decide.