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Megacaps have dragged markets into the red this year, but a majority of the S&P 500 is still in the green

52% of the S&P 500 has made gains in 2025. So far.

3/5/25 8:30AM

Markets have turned red this week, with America’s flagship index, the SPDR S&P 500 Trust, shedding the last of its postelection gains as traders rushed to the exits on “Tariff Tuesday,” compounding Monday’s 1.8% fall.

As companies and investors continue to digest President Donald Trump’s trade policy and the retaliatory measures it has inspired, investors are simultaneously reevaluating the AI trade on the fly. Yesterday afternoon’s price action suggested they aren’t giving up on it just yet.

Middle market

As we take stock on Wednesday morning, it’s worth zooming out and noting that 264 of the S&P 500’s constituents, or a little over 52% of the index, are actually still up in 2025. Indeed, if you woke up this morning after being asleep since New Year’s Eve, you’d have a hard time guessing that we’ve already had the “DeepSeek freak,” uncertainty over rising geopolitical tensions, and tariffs hitting the headlines this year, with the median S&P 500 stock up 0.7% in 2025.

The star of the S&P 500 Class of Q1 so far is CVS Health, which has jumped 45% since the start of the year, closely followed by Philip Morris International and Super Micro, which is doing the absolute bare minimum to remain on the market. Uber also joins the all-star lineup, ahead of Meta, which is the best of the Big Tech stocks, evading the pain of peers Amazon (-7%), Nvidia (-14%), and Tesla (-33%), which are all down. But the one company that’s down deepest in the trenches is UGG and Hoka shoe company Deckers, which never recovered from getting stomped after its underwhelming Q3 update.

So, not everything is down this year... but if you are nervous about a sustained market drop, it might be helpful to know which stocks are most, and least, sensitive to a market crash. Here’s a handy list of each, based on the last three years of data.

Luke Kawa6h

Hims & Hers sees surge turn sour in its biggest reversal since the 2025 stock market bottom

Hims & Hers erased gains of more than 5% in early trading to close down more than 7% on Thursday.

It’s the first time the telehealth company saw an intraday gain of 5% or more turn into a loss of 5% or more since April 8, 2025, which marked that year’s bottom for the S&P 500 amid the tariff-induced tumult.

Hims has been on an absolute tear this week after reaching a renewed partnership with Novo Nordisk to sell its weight-loss drugs, a pact that resolves the massive legal overhang that had been plaguing the stock. The momentum continued as Wall Street scrambled to boost its outlook on the shares following this arrangement.

There’s not much in the way of company-specific news to point to: Hims, like many other firms, tanked after the market opened as oil climbed.

Perhaps this is just a consolidation period — the so-called pause that refreshes — or a potential sign that the stock has squeezed all the juice it could out of one catalyst as the overall market wobbles under the weight of high oil prices brought about by the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks tumble as Brent crude closes above $100

Investors were plagued by inflation fears amid rising oil prices and ongoing private credit concerns.

Matt Phillips6h

Firefly Aerospace rockets higher as traders snap up calls

Firefly Aerospace shares soared after Wednesday’s successful liftoff of its Alpha rocket for the first time in almost a year was followed by a flurry of call buying in the options market.

Shortly before 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, roughly 36,000 call options on Firefly had changed hands, more than twice the average over the previous 20 days.

The Cedar Park, Texas-based designer and manufacturer of space launch vehicles has lost some serious altitude since its August 2025 IPO. It’s down about 60% since then, even after Thursday’s surge.

Vandenberg rocket launch visible across West Coast. Here's a recap

Luke Kawa

Woe de toilette

Spiking oil prices have investors turning up their noses at fragrance stocks

Estée Lauder and International Flavors & Fragrances are among the worst-performing stocks since the kinetic conflict in the Middle East started.

Saleah Blancaflor7h

Gas jumps $0.60 in under two weeks, hitting $3.60 as the market braces for possible $4 a gallon

Spring is just around the corner and gas prices just keep getting higher.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas is currently at $3.598, according to the American Automobile Association, jumping nearly $0.35 since last week.

The most recent prices are similar to the spring of 2024, while this is the first time it has gone above the $3.50 threshold since July 29, 2024.

While gas prices tend to increase during the warmer months, crude oil prices have played a major part in what consumers have been paying, at times exceeding $100 per barrel in the past few days.

To offset the rising energy costs due to the conflict in the Middle East, the US Department of Energy announced it would release 172 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves over the next four months as part of the larger effort to release 400 million oil barrels.

Prediction markets are pricing in an implied 62% chance that the price of gas exceeds $4.00 by the end of the month. Things may get even more expensive, though; markets are pricing in roughly even chances that gas finishes above $4.10, and even a 22% chance gasoline averages $4.50 per gallon by March 31.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

US gas prices jump to nearly $3.60 per gallon