What a year it’s been, especially for the five best-performing stocks in the S&P 500. While Nvidia, Alphabet, and the rest of the “Magnificent Seven” grabbed most of the headlines in 2025, the benchmark index was led by five stocks: Western Digital, Micron Technology, Seagate Technology, Robinhood, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The first four companies on the list have more than tripled their stock prices this year, with Warner’s soaring more than 170%, well outpacing the S&P 500’s 17.3% rise. Western Digital, Micron, and Seagate had a common driver: large memory demands. This year’s AI boom has led to significant shortages and soaring prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips by 2025. Demand doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. Counterpoint Research said earlier this month that memory prices will “rise another 40% by Q2 2026, resulting in BoM costs increasing by 8% to more than 15% above current rising levels.” Meanwhile, Robinhood received a big boost from mom-and-baby traders who had a major year. As Alex Harring’s story points out, retail traders know when to buy a pullback, driving the overall market rally to record levels. Many of these traders were conducting their trades through Robinhood accounts. The company has also expanded its product offerings to include prediction market betting. HOOD YTD Mountain Robinhood, a YTD Trust company, initiated this online brokerage with a buy rating in early December, noting that “HOOD’s core product development speed has driven significant growth in key metrics and share gains as the company expands its addressable customer range and continues to move upmarket toward larger wallets.” As for Warner, up until now it’s been all about M&A. The company accepted a takeover offer earlier this year, sending its stock price soaring. Warner announced on December 5 that it would sell its film and streaming assets to Netflix for $72 billion. CNBC’s David Faber reports that Paramount had received an offer from a rival, but Warner is expected to formally reject CBS’ parent company’s latest offer.
