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David Crowther & Claire Yubin Oh

Sandisk beat the entire S&P 500 in 2025… and it’s doing the same again this year

The New York Yankees. Italy’s national soccer team in the 1930s. The Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. The New England Patriots 22 years ago. Winning back-to-back titles etches your name in history.

And, though we’re only two weeks into the year, Sandisk is making a strong early case for its name to be added to the annals of stock market lore. After topping the S&P 500 Index with a whopping 559% total return in 2025, the stock is once again beating out around 500 of America’s largest companies this year too, already notching a 72% return since the calendars flipped. Sandisk is also up again in premarket trading on Friday.

Sandisk
Sherwood News

Back-to-back S&P 500 champ?

Though we have index-level data for the S&P 500 going all the way back to the 1920s (when it was a composite benchmark of far fewer names), getting comprehensive year-by-year returns of its constituents is a trickier business. But, from our research this morning, we found that no stock has ever managed to top the list twice in a row. That’s certainly the case in the modern era, though AppLovin made a strong defense of its 2024 title last year, finishing 11th with a 108% gain, while another AI-adjacent name, Palantir Technologies, came pretty close in both of the last two years. After gaining more than 350% in 2024, finishing second, Palantir led the index at various points last year, before Sandisk went parabolic to take the crown.

While other memory and storage companies like Western Digital, Seagate, and Micron have made serious gains, none have ripped as hard as SNDK.

Reemerging as a stand-alone company from Western Digital in February 2025, Sandisk’s focus on flash storage (specifically NAND) has made it an investor favorite as a pure-play company, benefiting from the enormous troves of data stored by hyperscalers to train and deploy their AI models — a need that is only likely to grow as adoption surges. Could Sandisk manage the back-to-back? The math (and the history) would suggest it’s very unlikely, even after a blistering start.

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Tasha Matsumoto, Matt Phillips
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The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 close at record highs again as Strait of Hormuz is declared open

Stocks reached new record highs as risk-on sentiment flooded back into the markets, while oil tumbled.

Chicago Bulls players Dennis Rodman (L), Scottie Pippen (C) and Michael Jordan (R) hold three of the team's four recent Larry O'Brien trophies 18 June at a rally for the team in Grant Park in Chicago.
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Matt Phillips

With their recent surge, Intel shares just hit their highest level since the dot-com era

Intel’s surge of nearly 60% this month has the iconic American chipmaker’s stock price approaching levels last seen during the dot-com era. Bloomberg noted that shares just touched their highest intraday level since the turn of the century:

“The stock rose as much as 1.5% to $69.55, topping a peak it hit on Jan. 24, 2020. The shares are up 90% this year, after soaring 84% in 2025. Intel is now roughly 8% from its all-time closing high of $74.88, established on Aug. 31, 2000.”

That’s just the most recent late-’90s-era throwback we’ve been seeing in tech shares lately. Oracle is currently pacing for its best week since late 1999.

What’s even more remarkable, however, is that Intel’s forward price-to-earnings ratio today dwarfs the premiums the market was putting on the stock during the nuttiness of the dot-com mania.

That reflects the fact that the recent run-up in Intel shares is, essentially, giving the chip giant credit for a massive turnaround that hasn’t actually happened yet.

One also might wonder if the fact that Intel is partially owned by the US government means it’s more attractive — and therefore worth a higher premium — than other chipmakers without the state imprimatur.

Still, kind of startling.

Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua - Fighter Showcase & Open Workout

Netflix sinks following disappointing outlook as investors wait for more ad growth

Netflix shares are down more than 10% on Friday morning.

Max Knoblauch6h
markets
J. Edward Moreno

Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill hit nearly 1,400 prescriptions in first week

Eli Lilly rose after preliminary numbers cited by Wall Street analysts showed strong uptake of its new weight-loss pill.

The FDA approved Foundayo on April 1 and shipments began on April 9. In its first week, roughly 1,400 US prescriptions were written for the drug, according to IQVIA data cited by Deustche Bank analysts in a Friday note.

Novo Nordisk, Lilly’s rival in the GLP-1 market, released its GLP-1 pill earlier this year, and early signs show that it’s expanding the market, inviting patients who were turned off by weekly injections. Novo’s pill had a stronger first week than Lilly’s, with its Wegovy pill hitting 3,071 US prescriptions in the first four days after its launch on January 5.

Lilly’s pill has an advantage over Novo’s, which is that it can be taken at any time of day, with or without food. Lilly disclosed in a February regulatory filing that it had $1.5 billion worth of prelaunch inventory ready ahead of the FDA approval — which is about as much as analysts polled by FactSet expect it to sell this year.

Eli Lilly makes the world’s bestselling drug. Can it keep the party going?

Eli Lilly makes the world’s bestselling drug. Can it keep the party going?

Novo Nordisk, Lilly’s rival in the GLP-1 market, released its GLP-1 pill earlier this year, and early signs show that it’s expanding the market, inviting patients who were turned off by weekly injections. Novo’s pill had a stronger first week than Lilly’s, with its Wegovy pill hitting 3,071 US prescriptions in the first four days after its launch on January 5.

Lilly’s pill has an advantage over Novo’s, which is that it can be taken at any time of day, with or without food. Lilly disclosed in a February regulatory filing that it had $1.5 billion worth of prelaunch inventory ready ahead of the FDA approval — which is about as much as analysts polled by FactSet expect it to sell this year.

markets
Claire Yubin Oh

Critical Metals jumps after Greenland’s government approves CRML to take majority control of the Tanbreez mining project

Critical Metals is up more than 25% in premarket trading on Friday after the critical mining company announced that it now owns 92.5% of the Tanbreez rare earth deposit following an approval from the government of Greenland.

With that latest government support, Critical Minerals added an additional 50.5% stake to its ownership, reportedly acquired from Rimbal Pty Ltd, per Bloomberg News. With access to eight heavy rare earth elements often used in consumer electronics and defense, the site is one of the world’s largest undeveloped rare earth deposits and a key source of rare earth supply outside of China, according to the company.

In Critical Metals’ press release, Chairman Tony Sage commented that the approval “removes the most significant structural overhang on the project and provides the clarity to advance Tanbreez to production with confidence,” especially as Tanbreez’s location offers a significant logistical advantage through its year-round direct shipping access, compared to rival projects.

With 92.5% of the project now vested in Critical Metals Corp., and the remainder owned by European Lithium Ltd., CRML now has full control of the project and is seeking to accelerate development there, with plans for a new international airport and a “150-tonne bulk sample program,” which is slated for June 2026.

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