Donald Trump has now officially been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. Wall Street’s mood has shifted more positive on the heels of more pro-business optimism and is calling for 12% or so gains in 2025. Should investors just buy an index and go play golf, or should they be tactical investors and go for where they think their capital will grow the most?
One lesson that investors often look into is when market patterns offer the set-up to identical repeat scenarios of prior years. With Trump in control and without any perceived major possibilities of a significant disruption to the initial administration plans, some investors have been wondering if the sectors and stocks that surged the most in 2017 (his first year as #45) will perform the same in 2025 (his first year as #47).
Tactical Bulls sees some similarities from 2016/2017 to 2024/2025. The S&P 500 rose 9.5% in 2015 and then rose 19.5% in 2017. One key difference in 2025 is that 2025 kicks off with the S&P 500 having risen by more than 20% in each of the last two years. Will that prevent another great year since valuations have expanded more than the economy expanded?
President Trump and the Republican congress also face harder growth challenges in 2025 as inflation has added more than 20% to the average cost of goods in the last 4 years alone. The government budget was also already set for 2025 with strong deficits even as Trump and Elon Musk are going for big government spending cuts. Deficits have also expanded in recent years and the interest alone on a $36 trillion deficit that is still growing is handily over $1 trillion per year.
Tactical Bulls has reviewed the top 20 performing stocks of 2017 and there may be some similarities and some night-and-day differences between how the setups are looking. Taxes and tariffs were on the docket back in 2017. The stark difference now is how some of the companies and sectors are now in entirely different scenarios for their business in 2025 versus 2017. Some of the old best performing stocks have even been acquired by larger companies.
Tactical Bulls kept a list of the top 20 stocks from the S&P 500 in 2017. We have evaluated each stock as of now, using conjecture and consensus analyst price target data from Finviz. None of the data being offered in this report is intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell these stocks. Tactical Bulls maintains no formal ratings or price targets on the companies mentioned below.
As always, there are absolutely no assurances that performance of any prior year will be repeated in a future year. Don’t forget that some of these companies are now completely different than nearly a decade ago. Here are the top 20 performing stocks of the S&P 500 from 2017, then versus now.
#1 Align Technology (NASDAQ: ALGN) up 132% in 2017.
Will Invisalign clear braces get more business as work from home trends come to an end? At $228 its consensus analyst target price is closer to $265.
#2 NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) up 121% in 2017.
Will the electricity producer and seller win from continued AI-data center demand? Evercore ISI just raised its rating to Outperform and raised its target to $126 from $74. With shares closer to $108, its consensus price target is about $112.
#3 First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) up 114% in 2017.
Trump has exited the climate accord and is not a fan of solar-only in a “drill baby drill” economic plan. Will tariffs help First Solar? It was down over 4% on Trump’s first trading day; and the stock fell from $215.89 on election day to $194.02 the very next day. The consensus analyst price target is still $275.
4. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) up 104% in 2017.
Vertex shares screamed higher in 2017 after its cystic fibrosis drugs were approved for more patients. With governmental efforts to cut costs, will they press for price cuts ahead now that it’s been on the market for over a decade? The stock was closer to $166 in 2017, and now its $425 with a $109 billion market cap. Analysts on average have a $499 price target.
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#5 Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) up 101% in 2017.
Micron may have its role in AI but most of Wall Street still thinks of it as a DRAM and flash memory maker. That said, many operations are domestic and we know the “America First!” attitude should seem to favor companies based in the U.S. with more operations in the U.S. It rose over 1% on Trump’s first trading day in 2025 and its stock was closer to $41 at the end of 2017. Micron’s shares were up at $108 on Trump’s first trading day and the consensus analyst price target is about $131 ahead of the tech earnings season.
#6 Wynn Resorts, Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) up 94% in 2017.
Will Wynn’s China and Asia exposure help or hurt the company under a Trump regime versus a Biden regime? It was up almost 2% at $86.25 on Trump’s first trading day but was closer to $165 at the end of 2017. The consensus price target is closer to $114.50.
#7 Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) up 89% in 2017.
Boeing has always had advanced defense operations, but the stock seems to trade almost solely on how well its plane sales, deliveries and its “scandal status” based on crashes and incidents. Its space operations will almost certainly be involved in going to Mars some day. It was up 3% at $176.50 on Trump’s first trading day in 2025 — but it has been plagued for some time even without the effects that Covid had had on airlines in 2020. Its stock is about half the value at the end of 2017 and nearly identical to the start of 2017. It now pays no dividend either.
#8 PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) up 87% in 2017.
PayPal was down almost 2% to $90 on Trump’s first trading day of 2015 versus a consensus price target of almost $96. A key difference now is that it was a recent spin-off from eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) back in 2015 and was a much faster-growth company. Even as a fintech player and even in a crypto-loving world, revenue was expected to grow just 6.5% in 2024 and slow to 5.7% revenue growth in 2025. It was closer to a $40 stock at the start of 2017.
#9 D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI) up 86% in 2017.
Trump wants homes to be more affordable, but everyone who buys a home loves for the home value to rise over time. At $147 the consensus analyst price target is closer to $174. This homebuilder was closer to being a $50 stock at the end of 2017.
#10 NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) up 83% in 2017.
Nvidia needs no introduction, but NVIDIA was still trying to get into competition with Intel and AMD back in 2017. And the race to AI wasn’t even top on the agenda for investors at the time when video game graphics were the top billing — and its efforts for data centers were still small. It was up less than 1% at $139 on Trump’s first trading day and the consensus analyst target price is $175. Will NVIDIA do better, the same or worse as Trump revoked Biden’s AI limitations.
#11 PulteGroup up 82% in 2017.
With a gain that was just 4% shy of D.R. Horton for 2017, what more is there to say?
#12 Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC) up 81% in 2017.
Selling insurance to under-insured and lower-income plans on Medicaid, Medicare and the exchanges can be risky but it was a tailwind in 2017. In November of last year, the stock fell to $62.56 from $64.80 the first day reaction to Trump’s win over Kamala. Now the stock is at $62.50 and up less than 0.5% on Trump’s first trading day. Wall Street’s consensus analyst price target is closer to $78 and it was roughly a $50 stock at the end of Trump’s first year as President #45.
#13 Activision Blizzard (formerly ATVI) was up 79% in 2017.
Activision Blizzard has since been acquired by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT). Nothing more to say.
#14 Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) up 78% in 2017.
Alcoa rose with aluminum prices in 2017 and around the Arconic spin-off, but down 0.5% at $39.35 isn’t a crushing start to the Trump Trade. Still, it rose from $42.78 on election day two months ago to $45.36 on the news that Trump had defeated Kamala. Wall Street’s consensus analyst target price is closer to $49. Now investors only need to know if aluminum prices and demand will be heading up, down or sideways looking 12 to 18 months in the future.
#15 Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ: LRCX) up 77% in 2017.
Lam had to ditch its KLA merger but still rose 77% in 2017. As a leader in semiconductor equipment it follows many of the cyclical chip sector trends. cyclical, big trends may be reducing the seasonality of its business. If so, then buying Lam Research shares in 2017 will look very smart. Its shares are marginally higher than after election day 75 days ago but that would be flat had the review been made a week earlier than this time. At $81, its consensus analyst price target was shown as $91.72. It has received one analyst upgrade and one downgrade as of this point in January.
#16 Red Hat (former RHT ticker) was up 76% in 2017.
Red Hat was about Linux and virtualization in 2017, but now it’s been assimilated into IBM as of 2019.
#17 Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) up 72% in 2017.
As the leader of robotic surgery in 2017 with Da Vinci, it’s still the leader in 2025 and has so far managed to not be acquired by growing into a $212 billion market cap. At $596 now and with revenues of $8.2 billion (projected) for 2024, it was under $150 at the end of 2017 with annual revenues of $3.1 billion back then.
#18 Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) up 70% in 2017.
Adobe was an endless grower in the prior decade and had moved to a SaaS subscription model back then. Now even with AI its growth is getting spottier. While it was up 1.4% at $436 in the middle of Trump’s first trading day of 2025, its stock is down handily from $550 just in early December. Analysts have taken a more measured view long-term but the consensus target price is still closer to $573 despite waves of price target cuts.
#19 FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) up 69% in 2017.
FMC is now solely focused on agriculture and crops. Back in 2017 it had a lithium business that was spun out in 2018. The stock has fallen since election of last year but closer to $55 now its consensus target price is closer to $67 looking ahead. This is just a different company now.
#20 Illumina Corp. (NASDAQ: ILMN) up 68% in 2017.
Illumina could do no wrong in 2017 with gene sequencing, but its stock is down about one-third from the end of 2017 and is less than one-third of its peak value in 2021. At $141 the consensus price target of almost $163 is of a more matured company that no longer seems to be growing revenues at all (-3.7% expected for 2024) and 2.5% growth expected for 2025.