We’re halfway there, and as a wise man from New Jersey once said, we’re livin’ on a prayer.

Here at the midpoint of the year, it’s worth taking a look back at the biggest winners and losers of 2026 thus far—and looking ahead at what the rest of the year may bring.

Let’s start with the good news: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq each clinched their best first half of a year since 2024, but the true winners were the Dow, which climbed 8.85% in the last six months for its best start to a year since 2021, and the Russell 2000, which soared 21.1%, its best first half since 1991.

The Russell 2000, which focuses on small-cap stocks, rose as the AI trade broadened from the Mag 7 into smaller chipmakers and semiconductor equipment manufacturers like Aehr Test Systems (up 472% YTD) and Ichor Holdings (up 430% YTD). Meanwhile, the Dow rallied as investors rotated out of big tech and into the sort of safer, more conservative stock picks the Dow specializes in.

The best and the worst

Don’t let the market’s recent pivot away from tech fool you, however: The AI trade still reigns supreme, even if the names at the top of the leaderboard have changed over the years.

While the Mag 7 was once dominant, the biggest stocks on the block have fallen on hard times. Although Alphabet, Apple, and Nvidia pulled their weight, the group has been dragged lower by Microsoft (down 22.87% YTD) and Meta Platforms (down 14.66%).

Instead, the new powerhouses are memory chip makers and data storage stocks, as you can see from the best-performing S&P 500 stocks of the year thus far:

• Sandisk: up 764%
• Micron Technology: up 301%
• Western Digital: up 278%
• Intel: up 257%
• Seagate Technology: up 252%

On the other hand, most of the biggest losers on the S&P 500 hail from the tech sector as well, tumbling lower as investors worry about their businesses being disrupted by AI:

• Intuit: down 60%
• CoStar Group: down 56%
• Boston Scientific: down 54%
• Accenture: down 54%
• Cognizant: down 53%

What lies ahead

So, what does the second half of the year hold in store for markets?

Goldman Sachs says the future is bright, at least in the near term. “A solid macro backdrop and the ongoing AI investment boom should lead to another quarter of strong earnings results despite an elevated hurdle set by analyst estimates,” chief US equity strategist Ben Snider recently wrote.

Analysts at JPMorgan looked further ahead, noting in their mid-year outlook report that strong earnings growth coupled with forthcoming peace in the Middle East is enough for them to believe the S&P 500 can climb to 7,800 by year end. “However, it’s important to keep in mind that the path upwards will be non-linear, as the market will need to clear various hurdles. Strong back-to-back earnings have reset the bar higher heading into the 2Q season, making it more difficult for companies to significantly surprise to the upside on both earnings and capex,” they wrote.—MR

🟢 What’s up

• AeroVironment jumped 18.76% after the dronemaker’s Q4 results far outpaced expectations, thanks to a surge in spending from the Department of Defense.
• Watts Water Technologies rose 9.06% after an upgrade to “overweight” from Barclays.
• Abivax surged 38.6% on the heels of the biotech company announcing promising data for its ulcerative colitis treatment.
• SolarEdge rose 5.56%, while Enphase Energy jumped 1.86% after Reuters reported that the Trump administration is planning a ban on foreign-made inverters.
• Air Products and Chemicals (creative name) rose 8% after the company said it isn’t going forward with its previously planned Louisiana Clean Energy Complex.

What’s down

• Digital Realty Trust fell 5.79% after it agreed to purchase a stake in leased data centers from Blackstone for $7.8 billion.
• Strategy dropped 6.2%, continuing to drop after yesterday’s announcement that it will likely sell some of its bitcoin hoard.
• Zimmer Biomet fell 5.68% after news broke that it was buying Pacira BioScience’s Iovera pain therapy system for $140 million.
• Merck was down 0.68% and AbbVie fell 0.98% after Reuters reported a US House committee opened a probe into whether the pharma companies were involved in clinical trials in China that aided its military operations.

A currency crisis on the other side of the world doesn’t feel like a big deal to American investors, but history shows that when the yen has a problem, everyone has a problem.

What’s happening: Yesterday afternoon, the Japanese currency fell to its lowest level compared to the US dollar since 1986, with one greenback worth about 162 yen.

The problem is that the Bank of Japan has kept interest rates extremely low for years, and investors figured out that if they borrow in yen and buy in higher-yielding assets elsewhere, they can pocket the difference. That’s kept the yen suppressed, and while the BoJ is raising interest rates, they remain low. The other challenge is a new prime minister who has promised big spending, which boosts the government deficit, which reduces investor confidence in the yen.

The cherry on top is that the US dollar keeps climbing as investors bet on a Federal Reserve rate hike, making the ratio with the yen that much more lopsided.

Why it matters: The Japanese government is taking measures to support the yen, and if its decline reverses into a rally, it could catch a lot of international investors offside—just like what happened in August 2024, when the yen carry trade suddenly unwound and caused a brief market meltdown. Smart investors will keep an eye on Japan to protect their portfolios from a repeat performance.—MR

AOL is no longer AWOL.

Like little sunglasses and baggy jeans, AOL is being revived from its ‘90s glory. Tomorrow, the iconic email company is logging back onto Wall Street, thanks to Italian firm Bending Spoons, which acquired AOL at the start of the year, listing on the Nasdaq tomorrow.

Bending Spoons has amassed a somewhat random—but lucrative—media empire through its acquisition strategy, purchasing list-making app Evernote in 2022, video platform Vimeo in 2025, and ticketing site Eventbrite in 2026.

Now, the firm is hoping to raise $1.6 billion in an IPO through selling 58 million shares at a price range of $26 to $29—making Bending Spoons worth roughly $18 billion if all goes to plan.

Bending conventional wisdom: Business is not as usual when it comes to Bending Spoons, starting with their quirky name, which the firm admitted in its prospectus is an ironic inside joke from when the company just had five employees. Despite the multibillion-dollar valuation it’s targeting, Bending Spoons is only marginally profitable, and the company plans to take on leverage to finance its acquisition spree. But that isn’t stopping management from remaining confident it can turn around beleaguered media companies.

“Our Playbook would be simple: acquire digital businesses, implement deep transformations and ongoing optimizations to sustainably expand earnings, and reinvest in additional acquisitions, thereby continuing the compounding cycle,” the company wrote in its prospectus. “As we transform AOL, Eventbrite, and Vimeo, and continue to optimize our other businesses, 2026 is shaping up to be strong. However, our focus remains on maximizing our prospects not for next quarter or even next year, but for the long run.”

#TBT

The last time you received that, “You’ve got mail” notification, life was simpler. AOL first went public back in 1992, under the name America Online, and in 2001 it merged with Time Warner in a notoriously disastrous deal. The company was then bought by Verizon in 2015, and sold once more to private equity giant Apollo Global Management.

Only time will tell if Bending Spoons will just be another stop on AOL’s downward spiral, or if it can kick off a new golden age for that little yellow running man.—LB

• Job openings beat expectations last month, defying the worst fears about the labor market’s slowdown.
• In more good macro news, consumer confidence rose in June, thanks to gas prices falling.
• Revenge of the salami: JPMorgan is blaming FINRA for the $4.25 million it was ordered to pay over the notorious “salami incident.”
• Warren Buffett is delaying his midyear donation to the Gates Foundation until the organization’s review of its ties with Jeffrey Epstein is finished.
• The three largest egg producers agreed to settle with antitrust authorities for $3.3 million over manipulating the market to keep prices high.
• Amazon Web Services announced it’s investing $1 billion in a new unit to help customers build and use AI systems.

Earnings announcements: The labor market lowdown continues tomorrow with a look at private payrolls via the monthly ADP report.

Economic reports: General Mills is one of the few companies reporting earnings tomorrow, and one of the final big consumer-facing companies to give us a look at how US shoppers are holding up.

Everything else: The US men’s national soccer team has advanced to the first knockout round, and will face Bosnia and Herzegovina at 8 pm.

Speaking of international rivalries, tomorrow is the deadline to renew the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Even if it’s not renewed, it’ll remain in force for at least the next 10 years, but if all parties agree to a new version then the agreement will be in place for 16 years.