The hottest stocks in today’s market are running higher. History says they are not soaring like dot-com stocks.
Across the S&P 1500 (^SPSUPX), the average top-10 performer gained about 240% in 2025 — a monster year by almost any standard, and still less than half the 606% average posted by the top 10 names in 1999.
The S&P 1500 is a broad US stock market benchmark that combines the large-cap S&P 500 (^GSPC), the S&P MidCap 400 (^MID), and the S&P SmallCap 600. S&P Dow Jones Indices says the combined index covers roughly 90% of US market cap.
That makes it a useful heat check beyond the usual megacap obsession.
The first chart shows how easy it is to mistake big winners for a bubble. Since 1996, the average top-10 stock in the S&P 1500 has gained about 220% in a full calendar year. That means triple-digit leaders are not automatically a bubble signal. In a 1,500-stock universe, something is almost always going vertical somewhere.
The bar for true dot-com heat is much higher.
That shows up in the second chart, which strips the question down to the gap between winners and losers. In 2025, the average top 10% stock beat the average bottom 10% stock by about 125 points.
Wide, yes. Wild, no. That was below the 30-year average and roughly half the late-1990s peak.
None of this lets today’s market off the hook. AI has carried a large share of the latest rally, and the market looks much thinner when those winners are stripped out, as recent breadth work looking under the market’s hood has shown.
But the bubble call gets harder when the ruler is history, not vibes.
The bar is not “big winners.” It is a market where winners and losers split like 1999.
This one has not cleared it.
Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.
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