I got home from the gym last night and was into my nightly doom scroll (a terrible use of time, I know). But a post on X stopped me in my tracks. It was the top five performing stocks of the year, and the guy said he had missed all of them.
I looked at the list and I currently own four of them.
I haven’t captured all of the moves from these stocks, but I have made most of my money this year in these names.
Reading the tweet got me thinking. We are looking at the list in completely different ways. The impression I got was that he missed them, they are gone, and that is it. I have been following these stocks, and they have kept giving entry points time and time again.
What is a “leader”?
A leader, in the simplest terms, is a stock that is outperforming the S&P, and other stocks in it’s group, from a price perspective. If the S&P goes up 1%, the leader is going up 3% or more.
Sometimes these leaders become very obvious, and amateur investors decide they cannot buy them because the price is too high. The stock goes up and they decide it is over. That is what I call consumer-buying-behavior. They act like there was a sale on Amazon for a blender. They missed the sale, so they will not buy it now, because it is not as good a deal as it was before.
Buy high sell higher
That is a terrible mindset to have in the stock market. The way you buy your favorite toothpaste on sale is not the way you buy stocks. Buy low, sell high has ruined people. The growth investors I learned from, William O’Neil, Jesse Livermore, Nicolas Darvas, taught the opposite through their research and experience. Stocks bought at new highs have a higher chance of advancing in price. That is counterintuitive if you are used to buying things on sale.
You are not used to buying something when it costs more than it did before.
You have to change that. New highs are the action that tells you there is institutional involvement. Funds are accumulating shares. That is the buying power that moves a stock higher.
Who are the 2026 leaders so far?
Here are the top five performing stocks of the year, as of the October 7 close:
SanDisk - 613%
Moderna - 566%.
Dell - 364%.
Micron - 281%.
Marvell - 235%.
I am currently long Moderna, Dell, Micron, and Marvell. And again, I did not capture the entirety of these moves.
Are these stocks topped? Is the run over? I don’t know for sure, but let’s take a look.
This is probably a good time to mention that I am not a licensed advisor and this is not financial advice. Do your own research.
SanDisk
My biggest winner this year. It doubled from my buy point before going into a correction.
Year to date it ran from about $285, hit an intermediary peak at $2,354, sold off to an intermediate low of $998, and is now trading at $1,692. It has gone sideways. If you know anything about technical analysis, does this look done? Does this look like a long-term top? Maybe, maybe not.
Stocks consolidate before they go on another run. Just because this stock went up the most, that is not a reason to stop looking at it. If it sets up and goes again, that is a reason to get involved.
Moderna
A modest advance, sideways action for most of the year, then a character change on the melanoma vaccine breakthrough, another advance, and now three weeks of sideways. Has it topped? Maybe, maybe not. There is no reason not to watch it, especially with what the company is doing.
I’m long MRNA and it is my second biggest winning position this year.
Dell
Dell is the same deal. A big run in the first part of the year, a lot of sideways action, a big week, more sideways. It is staircasing up. These charts are in health. None of them look broken. I am long Dell.
Micron
Micron looks a lot like Sandisk. A long cup with handle, consolidating sideways, actually in a three weeks tight. That is a positive sign of accumulation. I am long Micron.
Marvell
Marvell took off in March, right before the follow-through day. That is typical of leaders. Sometimes they go before the market and lead it higher. That is why they are called leaders. Highs of the year at $329, an intermediate low at $162.90, currently trading at $284. It is basing.
I am long Marvell. It is my third biggest winner of the year.
The rule
When you identify the leaders, you start to get a feel for what is going up the most:
Strongest themes of the year
Liquid
Growing earnings and sales
Clear signals of accumulation
Then you watch them. Ignoring a leader because it has already gone up is one of the dumbest things you can do. Keep it on a list.
What they do from there is give you a way in. They go sideways and hand you an entry. It can come in the form of pull back to moving averages, an upside reversal, or a new breakout from a base.
Do not waste the time hunting the penny stock you read in a trading discord. The institutions don’t buy those, and neither would I.
These funds have teams of quantitative analysts and researchers. They interview the founders and the CEOs. Look for their footprints. Pay attention to the 13Fs. Companies with strong earnings and sales are the ones that outperform year after year.
If you miss a leader, that is fine. Keep stalking the name. When it gives you the setup, that is the fat pitch.
Just because you missed the first opportunity doesn't mean there won't be another one. Makes sense to keep an eye on those stocks.