Moderna shares soared on test results for the drugmaker's experimental mRNA therapeutic vaccine, while software stocks continued to recover
These are among August's top-performing S&P 500 stocks.
Although the rise in oil prices and blowout earnings from megacap technology companies have grabbed headlines in August, there's a lot more to the market's rally in the past month than strength in those two sectors.
The S&P 500 index SPX has gained 2.5% during August. Shares of biotechnology company Moderna (MRNA) have made the biggest splash with a 152% gain, but the software industry has had another excellent month, continuing its recovery that started in June.
Here's a summary of how the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 have performed during August, through early trading on Monday. The sectors are sorted by their performance for the month and are followed by the full S&P 500, the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX and the S&P 500 Software & Services industry group.
Sector, index or industry group August price change Price change since June 30 2026 price change 2025 price change
Energy 6.9% 20.3% 41.9% 5.0%
Materials 6.5% 4.6% 16.2% 8.4%
Information Technology 5.9% 2.2% 22.1% 23.3%
Healthcare 4.1% 6.5% 9.2% 12.5%
Financial 1.4% 7.5% 5.3% 13.3%
Consumer Discretionary -0.1% 0.7% -0.4% 5.3%
Consumer Staples -0.9% 1.1% 7.8% 1.3%
Communication Services -0.9% -0.4% 0.0% 32.4%
Real Estate -2.2% 0.2% 9.9% -0.3%
Industrials -2.5% -5.5% 12.9% 17.7%
Utilities -5.6% -7.8% -2.1% 12.7%
S&P 500 index 2.5% 2.4% 12.2% 16.4%
PHLX Semiconductor Index 2.2% -18.8% 63.2% 42.2%
S&P 500 Software & Services 13.5% 28.4% 2.4% 9.7%
Source: LSEG
Price changes are also shown from the end of June. So far during the third quarter, the software industry group has performed very well, with a 28.4% gain. The group is up only slightly for all of 2026, but this marks a trend reversal after it sank 20% during the first half of the year.
Meanwhile, the PHLX Semiconductor Index of 30 chip makers and associated companies, which is tracked by the iShares Semiconductor exchange-traded fund SOXX, has gained 2.2% so far in August, following its decline of nearly 19% in July. Of course the semiconductor industry is still a market leader for 2026, with SOX up 63% so far this year. During August, that industry's leader, Nvidia (NVDA) - the largest company by market capitalization in the S&P 500 - has gained 8.6%, which is relatively modest considering the blowout results the company reported last week.
Best and worst performers of August
About half of the stocks in the S&P 500 were up for August through early Monday. There were 88 stocks showing gains of 10% or more.
Here are the 22 stocks in the S&P 500 showing gains of 20% or more for the month:
Company August price change Price change since June 30 2026 price change 2025 price change Intraday forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31 Moderna 151.7% 97.1% 368.0% -29.1% N/A N/A Palantir Technologies 50.8% 59.0% 4.4% 135.0% 86.0 173.1 Salesforce 39.4% 63.7% -3.2% -20.8% 15.7 20.2 Paramount Skydance 37.8% 11.3% -18.1% 28.1% 14.8 13.4 Veeva Systems 36.4% 56.6% 24.5% 6.2% 28.2 26.1 Newmont 35.4% 35.8% 27.0% 168.3% 12.3 11.1 Gartner 31.8% 53.5% -21.1% -47.9% 12.5 18.7 ServiceNow 30.3% 46.0% -5.4% -27.7% 30.8 37.1 Super Micro Computer 29.4% 25.3% 25.6% -4.0% 8.3 11.6 Workday 26.9% 66.2% -5.3% -16.8% 16.4 20.3 Lumentum Holdings 25.1% 4.0% 142.2% 339.1% 38.2 50.2 Airbnb 24.4% 31.7% 38.9% 3.3% 31.9 28.3 Sandisk 24.2% -33.6% 535.9% N/A 6.8 13.6 Charles River Laboratories International 23.0% 26.1% 43.3% 8.1% 23.1 18.2 Coinbase Global 21.8% 21.9% -21.2% -8.9% 197.4 34.4 Estee Lauder 21.8% 29.4% -2.4% 39.7% 29.6 41.1 Freeport-McMoRan 21.7% 21.2% 50.1% 33.4% 20.1 19.3 Leidos Holdings 21.4% 36.3% -22.2% 25.2% 11.1 14.6 Zebra Technologies 21.0% 35.0% 46.4% -37.1% 16.2 13.7 CrowdStrike Holdings 20.6% 20.7% 96.5% 37.0% 158.2 99.1 DoorDash 20.3% 27.8% 4.2% 35.0% 61.1 70.7 Tyler Technologies 20.3% 27.3% -18.0% -21.3% 25.6 36.3 Source: LSET
The right-most columns include current forward price-to-earnings ratios and those at the end of 2025. The P/E ratios are based on rolling consensus 12-month earnings-per-share estimates among analysts polled by LSEG. For 12 of these 22 stocks, forward P/E ratios have declined this year, because the earnings estimates have risen more quickly than the share prices. This is in keeping with the theme of an earnings-driven bull market. The S&P 500's weighted forward P/E has declined to 19.7 from 22.2 at the end of 2025, according to FactSet.
An "N/A" for forward P/E means the consensus 12-month EPS estimate for that company is negative or that an earnings estimate is (or was) unavailable.
Here are the 10 worst performers of August among the S&P 500:
Company August price change Price change since June 30 2026 price change 2025 price change Intraday forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31 DaVita -25.1% -19.2% 58.2% -24.0% 11.0 8.9 Edison International -25.0% -26.1% -8.3% -24.8% 8.6 9.8 PG&E -24.4% -21.9% -18.2% -20.4% N/A 9.9 Honeywell Aerospace -22.3% -27.4% N/A N/A 19.0 N/A Trade Desk -21.7% -21.8% -62.8% -67.7% 13.6 17.9