Markets have been anything but straightforward this year. Stocks have been hitting new records. But the war in Iran, rising inflation, and conflicting narratives over the AI trade have complicated the picture for investors.
Say you had $10,000 to invest on Jan. 2, the first trading day of the year. Had you invested that sum in a variety of major assets, here's where those bets would have left you at the end of the second quarter.
Stocks #
It may not be the sexiest bet in the book, but the S&P 500 (^GSPC), despite a ream of geopolitical and economic turmoils, has performed better so far in 2026 than many on Wall Street expected, returning roughly 9% in the face of what could've been a series of challenges.
Investors largely have the AI trade to thank. The outperformance of chip and memory stocks, powered by insatiable demand for AI development and ever-increasing compute capacity, has pulled up the entire US equity regime. If tech were stripped out, the S&P 500 would be largely flat.
Case in point: The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (^SOX), which tracks a basket of chip-related securities, has returned 98.7% for investors, turning a $10,000 investment into $19,546.72. The index's biggest holdings have all done well for investors. Micron (MU), the leading memory stock in the market and the fourth largest component of the Philly Semis index on June 30, has soared by 304% since the start of the year, while chipmaker AMD (AMD) has returned more than 170%.
Rounding out the top holdings, Broadcom (AVGO) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) have gained 9% and 59%, respectively, while top holding Nvidia (NVDA) — the world's largest company by market cap — is up 7% on the year.
Where the so-called tech trade has faltered in 2026 has been those companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars to buy the components made by the firms in the Philly Semis index, the so-called Magnificent Seven.
Taking together Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), and Tesla (TSLA), along with double-counted Nvidia, an investment in the basket of longtime Big Tech heavyweights has lost investors roughly 3%, turning a $10,000 investment into just over $9,500.
Commodities #
The commodities market, like US equities, has been a bit of a mixed bag for investors, starting with bitcoin (BTC-USD). The leading cryptocurrency entered the year after losing roughly 7% through 2025, and that slide has only continued, with a year-to-date loss of more than 32%.