Here are Wall Street’s favorite big tech stocks as the Nasdaq closes in on another milestone
All three of the major U.S. stock indexes hit records Friday, and the Nasdaq Composite Index might reach its next milestone — 15,000 — next week.
Below is a list of stocks whose gains have powered the Nasdaq Composite Index’s COMP,
Here’s a summary of Friday’s action:
- The S&P 500 Index SPX,
+1.01% rose to another intraday record high and closed at 4,411.79, for gains of 1% on the day and 16.3% for 2021, following an advance of 16.3% in 2020. - The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
+0.68% closed above 35,000 for the first time, up 0.7% for the session at 25,061.55. The index has gained 14.6% in 2021, following last year’s 7.2% increase. - The Nasdaq Composite Index also set an intraday record Friday and closed at 14,836.99 for a gain of 1%. The index is now up 15.1% for 2021, following a surge of 43.6% in 2020.
- The Nasdaq-100 Index hit its own intraday record high and closed with an advance of 1.1%. It has risen 17.3% this year, following a gain of 47.6% in 2020.
(Note: All price changes in this article exclude dividends.)
Nasdaq-100 winners for 2021
The Nasdaq-100 Index is made up of the 100 largest non-financial companies by market capitalization in the full Nasdaq Composite Index. It is reconstituted each year in December. Both indexes are weighted by market cap, and the Nasdaq-100’s market cap of $17.21 trillion is about 73% of the full index. So most of the full Nasdaq’s performance is represented by the Nasdaq-100, which is tracked by the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ,
Here are the 10 stocks among the Nasdaq-100 that have risen the most during 2021 through July 23:
| Company | Price change – 2021 | Price change – July 23 | 52-week high | Date of 52-week high | Decline from 52-week high |
| Moderna Inc. MRNA, |
233.9% | 7.8% | $349.45 | 07/23/2021 | -0.2% |
| Applied Materials Inc. AMAT, |
60.4% | 0.9% | $146.00 | 04/05/2021 | -5.2% |
| Alphabet Inc. Class C GOOG, |
57.3% | 3.4% | $2,776.17 | 07/23/2021 | -0.7% |
| ASML Holding NV ADR ASML, |
53.4% | 2.5% | $756.78 | 07/23/2021 | -1.1% |
| Alphabet Inc. Class A GOOGL, |
51.8% | 3.6% | $2,667.98 | 07/23/2021 | -0.3% |
| Nvidia Corp. | 49.8% | -0.2% | $208.75 | 07/07/2021 | -6.3% |
| EBay Inc. EBAY, |
46.3% | 2.1% | $73.77 | 07/23/2021 | -0.3% |
| Intuit Inc. INTU, |
39.1% | 1.4% | $532.33 | 07/23/2021 | -0.7% |
| Idexx Laboratories Inc. IDXX, |
38.8% | 1.6% | $696.35 | 07/23/2021 | -0.4% |
| DocuSign Inc. DOCU, |
38.8% | 0.2% | $310.51 | 07/22/2021 | -0.6% |
| CDW Corp. CDW, |
37.3% | 2.0% | $184.58 | 04/16/2021 | -2.0% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
Actually, there are 11 stocks on the list because the index includes Alphabet Inc.’s Class C GOOG,
Seven of those stocks hit 52-week highs July 23.
Wall Street’s favorite stocks in the Nasdaq-100
Here are the 10 stocks in the Nasdaq-100 with “buy” or equivalent ratings among at least 75% of analysts polled by FactSet, with the most 12-month upside potential implied by consensus price targets:
| Company | Share “buy” ratings | Closing price – July 23 | Consensus price target | Implied 12-month upside potential | Price change – July 23 | Price change – 2021 |
| Baidu Inc. ADR Class A BIDU, |
86% | $172.66 | $311.92 | 81% | -3.3% | -20.2% |
| Micron Technology Inc. MU, |
88% | $75.94 | $121.25 | 60% | 0.5% | 1.0% |
| JD.com Inc. ADR Class A JD, |
91% | $72.29 | $98.15 | 36% | -4.8% | -17.8% |
| NetEase Inc. ADR | 86% | $103.53 | $134.54 | 30% | -8.0% | 8.1% |
| Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRTX, |
78% | $200.50 | $259.71 | 30% | 2.3% | -15.2% |
| Microchip Technology Inc. MCHP, |
76% | $139.22 | $177.14 | 27% | 0.6% | 0.8% |
| Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI, |
88% | $91.50 | $116.09 | 27% | 1.1% | -1.5% |
| Fiserv Inc. FISV, |
85% | $111.79 | $141.27 | 26% | 1.6% | -1.8% |
| MercadoLibre Inc. MELI, |
78% | $1,613.81 | $2,021.37 | 25% | 1.4% | -3.7% |
| Netflix Inc. NFLX, |
78% | $515.41 | $619.67 | 20% | 0.7% | -4.7% |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. took a beating Friday, and you can see from the three on this list (Baidu Inc. BIDU,
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