MW These tech stocks join Alphabet among the sector's rare gainers for November
By Emily Bary and Philip van Doorn
Certain AI plays bucked the tech sector's selloff as the market got more discerning
Sundar Pichai has become a new kingmaker in AI, with shares of Alphabet and its suppliers outperforming in November.
Those searching for stock gains in the broader technology sector were short on success stories during the month of November.
Only 18 of the 84 major technology stocks screened by MarketWatch have generated positive returns so far this month. The shortlist of winners highlights ways the technology trade has evolved in only a few weeks.
For one, Alphabet Inc. $(GOOGL)$ seems to be the new kingmaker in the world of artificial intelligence. The stock has returned 13.8% over the course of November to date, enough to rank second among MarketWatch's basket of technology stocks for the period. And Alphabet's momentum has helped lift shares of its suppliers.
Just look at shares of Broadcom Inc. $(AVGO)$, which bucked a selloff in the semiconductor sector to stage a 7.6% monthly return through Wednesday's close. Broadcom works with partners like Google on application-specific integrated circuits, which rival graphics processing units sold by Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $(AMD)$.
Don't miss: Why AMD's stock is having its worst month in three years
Two Google-related developments are seen as upbeat for Broadcom. For one, Alphabet's tensor processing units, designed alongside Broadcom, were initially designed for internal use. Now their performance reportedly is attracting attention externally, which could expand the revenue potential for both companies.
Plus, Google's newly released Gemini 3 large language model met a warm reception on Wall Street and within the technology community, fueling the narrative that Alphabet may be ahead of OpenAI when it comes to chatbot functionality. Future momentum for Google in AI bodes well for Broadcom and other Alphabet suppliers, a trend that has worried some Nvidia investors lately.
Read on: Nvidia is going out of its way to rebut online criticism. Is this savvy PR or adding fuel to the fire?
Alphabet's stock is the second-best monthly performer among the tech stocks screened by MarketWatch, with top honors going to Akamai Technologies Inc. $(AKAM)$, a maker of cybersecurity offerings whose shares have returned 19.1%. That company is an AI play as well, having recently announced an enhanced partnership with Nvidia.
"We view Akamai as a beneficiary of the growing importance of edge compute, particularly as AI-inference-based workloads continue to expand," William Blair analyst Jonathan Ho wrote earlier this month, referring to how more AI tasks are being handled on user devices versus in the cloud.
The tech sector's gainers
The AI trade fizzled out in November, pressuring shares of Nvidia, Meta Platforms Inc. (META) and other prominent plays on the trend. But there were still some AI beneficiaries among the list of monthly gainers.
For a broad screen of large-cap technology companies' performance, we started with the 70 companies in the S&P 500 SPX information-technology sector. But the sector actually excludes several "Big Tech" names, such as Alphabet and Meta, which are in the communications-services sector, along with Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Tesla Inc. $(TSLA)$, which are in the consumer discretionary sector. So we added 12 more stocks that are in the Nasdaq-100 Technology Index XX:NDXT along with Amazon and Tesla to cover the entire "Magnificent Seven" group for a screen of 84 companies.
Among the 84 companies, 26 showed doubled-digit declines for November through Wednesday as the S&P 500 information-technology sector declined 4.8%. These 18 stocks bucked the negative trend to show gains for November through Wednesday:
Company Ticker Total return from Oct. 31 through Nov. 26 2025 total return Akamai Technologies Inc. AKAM 19.1% -6.5% Alphabet Inc. GOOGL 13.8% 69.6% Epam Systems Inc. EPAM 12.9% -21.0% Analog Devices Inc. ADI 10.2% 23.0% Fair Isaac Corp. FICO 8.3% -9.7% Broadcom Inc. AVGO 7.6% 72.7% Applied Materials Inc. AMAT 7.5% 55.3% Keysight Technologies Inc. KEYS 7.2% 22.1% Seagate Technology Holdings PLC STX 6.4% 220.6% Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. CTSH 6.2% 1.8% VeriSign Inc. VRSN 5.7% 23.1% Western Digital Corp. WDC 5.0% 251.1% Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO 4.0% 31.9% Micron Technology Inc. MU 2.9% 174.4% Apple Inc. AAPL 2.8% 11.3% Texas Instruments Inc. TXN 2.4% -8.9% First Solar Inc. FSLR 2.0% 54.5% Trimble Inc. TRMB 1.9% 15.0% Source: LSEG
EPAM Systems Inc. (EPAM), which provides information-technology consulting and other services, saw revenue growth tick higher in the latest quarter, with Mizuho analyst Sean Kennedy noting that AI has driven customers to modernize their clouds through EPAM's services. Shares of the company have returned 12.9% so far in November.
And Western Digital Corp. $(WDC)$ and Micron Technology Inc. $(MU)$ have eked out positive monthly returns of 5% and 2.9%, respectively, thanks to booming demand for storage and memory solutions in the AI era. The two stocks remain among the S&P 500's best 2025 performers, with a 251% return for Western Digital and a 174% return for Micron.
See also: The surprising stocks leading the tech sector this year thanks to an AI renaissance
Putting those gains in context
Information technology was the worst performer among the 11 S&P 500 sectors for November through Wednesday, showing a 4.8% decline, with dividends reinvested, while the full index has declined slightly.
For all of 2025 through Wednesday, the S&P 500 has returned 17.2%, with dividends reinvested. Here's how the 11 sectors have performed, on the same basis:
The S&P 500 communications services sector has been the strongest performer of the index's 11 sectors so far in 2025, with a total return of 33.9%, with dividends reinvested.
Despite the November decline, the information-technology sector has had the second-highest ranking with a 2025 return of 23.7%.
The communications sector tops the list with a 33.9% return, though this sector's return has been heavily influenced by Alphabet, which makes up nearly 21% of the Communication Services Select Sector SPDR ETF XLC, an exchange-traded fund that tracks this sector of the S&P 500 by holding all of its stocks, weighted by market capitalization.
-Emily Bary -Philip van Doorn
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November 28, 2025 08:23 ET (13:23 GMT)
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