S&P 500 Hits Record Highs, But 97% of Stocks Remain Below Peaks

The S&P 500 index reached a fresh all-time high on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. However, this milestone was driven by a small fraction of the index's members. According to data from TradingView, only 15 of the 504 stocks in the S&P 500 were at record levels on that day. This represents just 3% of the index.

The disparity between the index and its constituents is significant. The median S&P 500 stock is trading 25% below its own all-time high. Furthermore, 294 stocks, or 58% of the index, are at least 20% below their peaks. A total of 88 stocks have fallen 50% or more from their highs.

The performance of the index is heavily influenced by a small group of mega-cap companies. The 15 record-setters have a combined market value of $8.7 trillion, which accounts for 11.5% of the total value of the S&P 500. Nvidia Corp. alone accounts for $5.8 trillion of that total.

Among the largest companies in the index, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is currently trading roughly 24% below its peak. Other major technology names, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), are also trading below their all-time highs.

The 15 stocks that achieved record highs on Tuesday share a common theme: they are primarily involved in the hardware and security sectors related to artificial intelligence. Seven of the record-setters are data-center hardware plays, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD), Amphenol Corp. (NYSE: APH), Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LITE), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (NYSE: HPE), Keysight Technologies Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), and Everpure Inc. (NYSE: P), formerly Pure Storage.

Four of the record-setters are cybersecurity and network-security names: Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: PANW), CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD), Fortinet Inc. (NASDAQ: FTNT), and F5 Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV). Outside of technology, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT), Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO), and Johnson Controls International plc (NYSE: JCI) also made the list.