MW Megacap stocks aren't all up in 2025. But this chart shows they've trounced the S&P 500's smallest equities.

By Christine Idzelis

'While there may have been some concerns over the performance of the megacap stocks in recent months, they're still doing much better than the nine smallest stocks,' Bespoke found

The nine biggest stocks in the S&P 500 have seen mixed performance so far this year, but their shares are still outperforming the index's smallest companies, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

"When it comes to the megacap stocks in the S&P 500 with market caps of more than or around a trillion dollars, an increasingly evident trend is that the group no longer trades as a block," wrote Bespoke in an emailed note Tuesday.

"Each member's performance is no longer in line with the others," the firm found in analyzing nine stocks - including Microsoft Corp. $(MSFT)$, Nvidia Corp. $(NVDA)$, Apple Inc. $(AAPL)$, Amazon.com Inc. $(AMZN)$, Google parent Alphabet Inc. $(GOOGL)$ $(GOOG)$, Meta Platforms Inc. $(META)$, Broadcom Inc. $(AVGO)$, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. $(BRK.B)$ $(BRK.A)$ and Tesla Inc. $(TSLA)$

"While there may have been some concerns over the performance of the megacap stocks in recent months, they're still doing much better than the nine smallest stocks," said Bespoke.

"Where we have seen a group of stocks trade much more in unison," the firm added, is the S&P 500's SPX nine smallest equities based on market value - citing Caesars Entertainment Inc. $(CZR)$, Enphase Energy Inc. (ENPH), Mohawk Industries Inc. $(MHK)$, Invesco Ltd. $(IVZ)$, APA Corp. $(APA)$, Charles River Laboratories International Inc. $(CRL)$, Albemarle Corp. $(ALB)$, Generac Holdings Inc. $(GNRC)$ and AES Corp. $(AES)$

The S&P 500's nine smallest stocks have tumbled an average 20.7% in 2025, with a median drop of 19.3%, the Bespoke note showed. By contrast, megacap stocks with market values of around $1 trillion or more are about flat year to date, on average, and are up 5.4% based on median performance in 2025.

The divergence in performance over the past year is more striking. The Bespoke note showed that the smallest stocks in the S&P 500 were down 30.9%, on average, over the last 12 months. The group of nine megacap stocks saw an average jump of 28.2% over the same period.

"Even on a relative strength basis, the nine stocks with the smallest market caps in the S&P 500 have consistently underperformed," said Bespoke. "Earlier this month, they even made a new low relative to the megacaps."

The U.S. stock market has broadly risen so far this year. The S&P 500 SPX, a U.S. large-cap equities index that has a heavy weighting in Big Tech, was up 2.6% year to date on Tuesday afternoon.

Among the nine megacap stocks tracked by Bespoke, four Big Tech stocks were in the red year to date, including Tesla, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon.

As for the nine smallest stocks in the S&P 500, all were down year to date and the "range of returns has been much closer than the largest stocks in the S&P 500," Bespoke found.

Meanwhile, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF RSP, an exchange trade fund that equally weights stocks in the S&P 500, has gained 2.4% so far in 2025. The ETF was only slightly lagging the S&P 500's rise year to date, according to FactSet data on Tuesday afternoon.

-Christine Idzelis

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June 10, 2025 15:48 ET (19:48 GMT)

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