Stocks to Be Thankful For

Despite its down session, the S&P 500 closed the day at its second-highest level in history. It's up 12.4% on the year, adding 399 points. The S&P 500 is a market-capitalization weighted index, meaning that the largest stocks have outsize gains. Nicholas Jasinski will have a story on Barrons.com tomorrow morning on how those gains break down. Here's a sneak peak:

More than half of the S&P 500’s point gain in 2020 is thanks to three highflying and highly valued stocks: Apple, Amazon.com, and Microsoft. Their stocks are up 60%, 73%, and 37%, respectively, year to date, and have a combined market value of some $5.2 trillion. Their rallies have added 208 points to the S&P 500 this year. 

Google-parent Alphabet and Facebook are responsible for another 51 points of the S&P 500’s 2020 rise. Whether you’re bullish on big tech or not, the majority of the index’s increase this year has come thanks to those five stocks.

More big point contributors to the S&P 500 in 2020 through Thanksgiving have been a handful of other large technology stocks. PayPal Holdings is up 96%, adding 14.8 points; Salesforce.com is up 63%, adding 11.1 points; Netflix is up 50%, adding 8.5 points; and Qualcomm is up 68%, adding 8.0 points. 

Of course, some of the year's biggest gainers aren't in the S&P 500, or at least not yet. Tesla is up 586% on the year. Zoom Video Communications is up 552%, and Peloton Interactive is up 277%.