The 25 Best Stocks of President Biden's First 100 Days
From a market perspective, President Joe Biden is having one of the best first 100 days in the postwar era. These 25 stocks are the hottest of the lot.
President Joe Biden's first 100 days have effectively been several months of heaven for investors – especially those lucky enough or smart enough to have exposure to the 25 best stocks since the inauguration.
Mind you, it hasn't exactly been necessary to carefully select stocks since the 46th president was sworn in. The market has been on something of a historic tear ever since Biden took the oath of office.
"If the stock market's performance is any indication, Wall Street appears to approve of President Biden's attempts to corral the COVID-19 virus and stimulate the economy," writes Sam Stovall, Chief Investment Strategist at CFRA. The S&P 500 is up 9.3% through April 29, which puts Biden's first 100 days on pace to be the second-strongest such performance since World War II, bested only by John F. Kennedy.
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Careful stockpickers have done even better – perhaps much better – than what the broader market has had to offer. We screened the Russell 1000 of large and mid-cap equities for the top 25 best stocks by pure price performance during Biden's first 100 days, and the results were stunning.
As mentioned before, the S&P 500 gained 9.3% from Jan. 20 through April 29. Over the same span, however, the top stocks in the Russell 1000 have generated an average gain of almost 52% as Biden closes out his first 100 days.
It should come as no surprise that "recovery plays" dominate the list of top performers in Biden's first few months. For example, retail, energy, travel and leisure, regional banks and a steelmaker all landed among the Russell 1000's best stocks.
Upstart Holdings (UPST), the cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform, leads the way, almost doubling in Biden's first 100 days. UPST, which made its stock market debut in mid-December at $20 a share, has been one of the more successful recent initial public offerings.
Mall-based retailer Gap (GPS); steelmaker Nucor (NUE), which happens to be a Dividend Aristocrat; and travel site TripAdvisor (TRIP) are among the more notable recovery plays found on the list. Oil and gas firm Diamondback Energy (FANG) – among Wall Street's favorite oil stocks – also has outperformed during Biden's first 100 days.
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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.
A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.
Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.
In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.
Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.
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