Looking at the Market’s Biggest Winners in the First Half of 2025
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! And congratulations on making it to the halfway point of 2025.
It has been a wild first half of the year on Wall Street, with stocks initially crashing into a bear market on trade war fears in the first quarter, only to rebound back to all-time highs in the second quarter for their best quarterly performance in years.
To paraphrase Dickens: It was the best of times and the worst of times — all before summer.
But beneath the surface chaos, one thing became crystal clear: AI is the defining investment trend of this decade. And in the first half of 2025, that truth minted a long list of monster winners.
AI Infrastructure Ignited First
AI infrastructure stocks, in particular, stayed red-hot in the first half of 2025. AI GPU rental firm CoreWeave (CRWV) soared almost 300% in the first six months of 2025.
Another AI infrastructure firm by the name of Nebius (NBIS) popped about 80%. AI semiconductor firms ACM Research (ACMR), Navitas Semiconductor (NVTS), Celestica (CLS), and Seagate Technology (STX) all rose more than 60% in the first half of the year.
Continued signs of robust spending on AI infrastructure kept these stocks on a winning path.
Then Software Followed the Surge
AI software stocks did well, too, as companies looked to increasingly deploy AI software throughout their enterprises.
Palantir (PLTR) soared 70% in the first half of 2025. AI-powered cybersecurity firm Cloudflare (NET) also rose 70%. So did one of its biggest peers, Zscaler (ZS).
Smaller software stocks like Porch Group (PRCH) and PaySign (PAYS) both soared about 150%. And fintech disruptor Dave (DAVE) – whose AI-powered lending algorithm has become wildly popular – saw its stock rise nearly 200% in the first half of 2025.
Beyond the AI wave, we saw huge growth in some AI-related industries, like nuclear energy stocks.
AI’s Ripple Effects Created Surprise Winners
Nuclear energy stocks caught fire in the first six months of 2025 as Big Tech companies like Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta (META) turned to nuclear energy reactors to power their new AI datacenters, and as U.S. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to promote new nuclear energy reactor construction in the U.S.
Uranium firm Centrus (LEU) rose more than 150% in the first half of 2025. Small modular reactor maker Oklo (OKLO) soared about 140%. Its biggest competitor – NuScale (SMR) – doubled in the first half of the year.
Self-driving car stocks were also stars in the first half of 2025 thanks to AI accelerating the deployment of robotaxi services across the globe. Chinese autonomous car sensor supplier Hesai (HSAI) saw its stock pop about 50% in the first half of the year. One its American peers – Aeva (AEVA) – experienced a jaw-dropping 500% return in the first six months of 2025.
And metal mining stocks also generally saw huge returns in the first half of the year, thanks to surging demand for rare earth metals as critical components for physical AI applications, like humanoid robots. U.S. rare earth metals miner MP Materials (MP) saw its stock more than double in the first half of the year, while deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company (TMC) popped an incredible 430%.
Last, but not least, we saw space stocks soar in the first half of 2025, with some of them soaring because of AI-related developments.
Planet Labs (PL), for example, has reported strong numbers all year long due to surging demand for its space AI intelligence solutions, and the stock is up almost 55% year-to-date. Rocket launch firm RocketLab (RKLB) is up about 50% year-to-date. Space communications company AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is up 115% so far in 2025. BlackSky Technology (BKSY) is up more than 80%.
In other words, through all the geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility in the first half of 2025, we observed a clear investment theme emerge on Wall Street.
Stocks in and around the AI Boom continued to thrive in the chaos.
We think this will remain true for the foreseeable future.
AI Is Just Getting Started
The AI Boom represents the biggest technological paradigm shift of our lifetimes and it is still in the early innings of transforming how we eat, play, work, travel, and more.
With things like humanoid robots, self-driving cars, complex inference models, and AI glasses just now emerging out of science labs, the scope and speed of AI economic transformation will only accelerate meaningfully over the next few months.
As it does, AI stocks will remain the big winners on Wall Street – even if the broader market wobbles, like it did in the first half of 2025.
That’s why we believe investors should be “AI with AI” – or all-in with artificial intelligence. It is time to back up the truck with AI stocks.
Click here to learn more about some of our favorite AI stocks right now.
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