Will 2025's 3 Best-Performing "Ten Titans" Stocks Lead the Group Again in 2026?

Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:10 AM 7 min read

• Despite its smaller cloud market share, Oracle has significant advantages compared to Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.

• Netflix is at the top of its game, but its valuation is extended.

• Nvidia’s latest quarterly results showcase why the stock remains a compelling long-term buy.

• 10 stocks we like better than Oracle ›

The 10 largest growth-focused U.S. companies now make up 38% of the S&P 500. Known as the "Ten Titans," the list includes Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Tesla, Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX).

Oracle, Netflix, and Nvidia have been the best performers of the Titans year to date. Let's determine if these growth stocks have what it takes to continue outperforming next year.

Oracle has been the standout among the Titans. With a year-to-date total return of more than 40%, it vaulted its market cap above $660 billion.

Oracle was close to dead money in the five years between 2015 and the end of 2019 -- gaining just 17.8% compared to 56.9% for the S&P 500. But since the start of 2020, Oracle is up 345% compared to a 100.6% gain in the S&P 500. A big driver of the outperformance is the build-out and adoption of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Oracle transformed from a database-first company to a fully fledged ecosystem. Not long ago, companies were using Oracle's database software on third-party clouds. Oracle decided to capture that revenue by building out its own cloud services.

Oracle Integration Cloud hosts software-as-a-service offerings for financial reporting, automated workflows, human resources operations, marketing, personalization, and more. Oracle also offers artificial intelligence (AI)-powered database services. And OCI has been shown to be much more cost-effective for data-intensive operations than Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. It's an especially ideal offering for industries like financial services and healthcare that have complex regulatory frameworks and sensitive information. On its earnings calls, Oracle often discusses how industries are choosing OCI for its security and compliance capabilities.

Oracle was already a leader in enterprise software solutions. And now, it is a major player in the cloud business. The main downside of Oracle is that its valuation is expensive, and it is spending extremely aggressively. Oracle is arguably among the higher-risk, higher-potential-reward Titans. If its investments translate to bottom-line earnings growth, it could continue to be one of the best performers in the group. If not, it wouldn't be surprising if the stock underwent a sizable sell-off.