The S&P 500, which is tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY), hit several all-time highs in 2025 and closed up 16.6%.
• SPDR S&P 500 stock is showing positive momentum. What’s the outlook for SPY shares?
Here's a look at the top-performing stocks in the index for the year, and how those stocks and the overall index return compare to the previous years with President Donald Trump in the White House.
The S&P 500 extended its years of strong returns with a third straight year of returns of 16% or better. Benzinga readers correctly predicted a strong return with Trump back in the White House.
Here are the 10 best-performing S&P 500 component stocks in 2025, as tracked by SlickCharts:
The list of top stocks includes several winners in the semiconductor sector, which saw strong interest and soaring valuations during the year.
Benzinga previously highlighted the top 10 S&P 500 stocks from 2017, which was the first year with Trump in office during his first presidential term. That story highlighted health care, consumer discretionary, technology stocks and semiconductors as top-performing sectors to watch.
Of particular note, Micron ranked as the sixth-best performing stock in 2017 with a gain of 88%. This means the company has now ranked as a top 10 S&P 500 component in the first year of Trump's two presidential terms.
While the 16.6% gains for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust continue several years of strong gains, the return is the worst in the past three years and the seventh best of the past 10 years.
Here are the recent returns:
The 2025 return of 16.6% is also the fourth best of the five years Trump has been in office for the majority of the full year. Here are the past returns with Trump in the White House:
Investors likely would love to see the same strong returns in three of the four years with Trump in office previously, and see a return to the 24% or more gains they saw in three of the past four years prior to 2025.
A look at the past history shows the second year of both Trump and President Joe Biden saw the lowest return of their four-year terms, which could be a trend to watch in 2026.
Read Next:
Photo: Shutterstock