Stock Market Now: 2018 Top Stocks

The year 2017’s global stock market had been a strong one. But in contrary, 2018 global market results have been the worst yet for the decade. The main gauge of the U.S. equities and market, the S&P 500, suffered a 6.2% decline which is the worst performance since the year 2008 with a financial crisis of losing 38.5% of its stock market performance. According to historical data, the index performed a 9.8% average annual return since 1928 towards 2016.

S&P 500 is in accordance with the market capitalization values of the biggest 500 companies included on the NASDAQ/NYSE. It has about $10 trillion worth of products which are all indexed or gauge within it.

There is broader market including to 2018 index’s who consistently lose. That includes Nasdaq composite (3.9% loss) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (5.6% loss) who both are going through the worst year in a decade. Most of these losses happened during the fourth quarter, wherein stocks are getting pressure with an economic slowdown fears, Federal Reserve policy and the cold trade war between China and the United States.

But still, to provide you with great positivism, some stocks did manage to go strong. Let’s list down some of the best stocks performing well in the S&P 500.

AMD – Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices can be placed at the top of the best-performing stocks within the S&P 500 for the year 2018. AMD had $19.41 billion market cap with their Santa Clara, California-based semiconductors specialist, gaining 79.6%, A huge rebound from their 9.3% decline during 2017.

Most earnings comes from the high demands of their new central processing units (CPU), which are being use to the traditional electronics including the video games. Also, increasing demand on their graphics cards (GPUs) helped which are mostly use for cryptocurrency and blockchain mining space and in cloud computing. The AMD got ahead against their competitor Intel, Inc after having a production issue resulting to an undersupplied 10-nanometer.

But AMD still also suffered during the fourth quarter of 2018 due to a selloff. It also suffered the same time with the rest of the market, yet its 7-nm chip launching allows AMD to compete against Intel’s 10nm holding still in the market. Their stocks also suffered in accordance with the recent declines in cryptocurrency mining interest, also their competitor, Intel, soon solved their 10-nm problems.

Abiomed

The second of the best-performing stock within the S&P 500 for 2018. A Danvers, Massachusetts based health care tech, and medical device producer had a 73.4% gain last year upon having a 66.3% gain in 2017.

This medical device maker company centered on devices used for the heart including invasive heart pumps. Abiomed stock price grew through the month of June then see-sawed the rest of 2018. Their highlights include a double-digit rally during the month of September. After they’ve presenting data showing how to use their Impella heart pump leading to an increased survival rate of cardiogenic shock patients.

The company’s high-beta stock from October and December sell-offs are due to a broader market declines. Abiomed reports unexpected third-quarter results in November. Their quarterly result showed revenues from their Impella heart pumps jumps by 38% gain after a year. The company is to focus on continued expansion of their Impella device across broader markets in 2019.

Fortinet

The third one on our list, Fortinet, best-performing stocks within the S&P 500 in 2018. Based in the Sunnyvale, California a global cybersecurity solutions provider had a 61.2% gain in 2018 from  45.1% in 2017.

Fortinet focuses on developing and marketing software and appliances including anti-virus, firewalls, endpoint security, and intrusion prevention. In comparison with our top one and two best-performing stocks, Fortinet profit were slow all-throughout 2018. The shares earning boost a strong 52% year-over-year increase within the second-quarter earning and a year-over-year increase of revenue of 21%. Similar stocks also had the benefit because of the increasing concerns of online frauds and breaches of high-profile companies who suffered from data hacking, user information misuse, and flaws in security.

During the month of September, Fortinet presented FortiNAC product line to support the Internet of Things (IoT) services. Because of the product line, Gartner recognized Fortinet as a leader in the Unified Threat Management (UTM). The company is to gain a boost from the 5G services and connectivity boom.