Ten stocks capped off Friday’s trading with strong gains, as investors digested a flurry of earnings reports, while repositioning portfolios ahead of dividend payments.
Meanwhile, Wall Street’s three major indices finished in the green, with the Nasdaq leading gains by 0.90 percent, followed by the S&P 500 with a 0.69 percent jump, and the Dow Jones, up 0.47 percent.
Indices aside, we spotlight the 10 top-performing stocks on Friday and break down the reasons behind their gains.
To come up with the list, we focused exclusively on the stocks with a $2 billion market capitalization and 5 million shares in trading volume.
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10. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Alphabet grew its share prices by 4.01 percent on Friday to close at $314.98 apiece as investors positioned portfolios ahead of its next quarterly dividend payment.
According to the company, it would pay $0.21 in dividends to all shareholders of Class A, B, and C shares on record as of March 9, 2026, payable on March 16.
The dividends followed the release of a strong earnings performance last year, with net income expanding by 32 percent to $132 billion versus $100 billion in 2024. Revenues surged by 15 percent to $402.8 billion from $350 billion year-on-year.
In the fourth quarter alone, net income increased by 29.8 percent to $34.4 billion from $26.5 billion, while revenues jumped by 18 percent to $113.8 billion from $96.5 billion.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai said that the quarter was a tremendous period for the company, with annual revenues breaking past the $400 billion level for the first time.
“The launch of Gemini 3 was a major milestone, and we have great momentum,” he said, adding that the technology giant continues to drive strong growth across the business.
“YouTube’s annual revenues surpassed $60 billion across ads and subscriptions; we now have over 325 million paid subscriptions across consumer services, led by strong adoption for Google One and YouTube Premium. And Google Cloud ended 2025 at an annual run rate of over $70 billion, representing a wide breadth of customers, driven by demand for AI products. We’re seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board,” he noted.
In other news, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chief Finance Officer Anat Ashkenazi is set to participate in the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on March 3, where investors will closely watch out for cues to spark trading appetite.
9. B2Gold Corp. (NYSEAmerican:BTG)
B2Gold jumped by 5.27 percent on Friday to close at $5.39 apiece, as investors took heart from the company’s return to profitability last year, thanks to a combination of production expansion and higher-than-expected gold prices.
During the period, B2Gold Corp. (NYSEAmerican:BTG) swung to a net income attributable to shareholders of $401.9 million from a $629.89 million attributable net loss in 2024. Gold revenues surged by 61 percent to $3.06 billion from $1.9 billion year-on-year, on gold sales of 927,797 ounces at an average realized gold selling price of $3,299 per ounce.
Consolidated gold production finished at 979,604 ounces, or within the guidance of 940,000 and 1.04 million ounces.
In the fourth quarter alone, attributable net profit stood at $170.58 million, reversing an $11.88 million attributable net loss in the same quarter a year earlier. Gold revenues more than doubled to $1.05 billion from $499.8 million year-on-year.
For this year, B2Gold Corp. (NYSEAmerican:BTG) expects to produce between 820,000 and 970,000 ounces of gold, or a decline from 2025 due to a step down in production at the Otjikoto Mine and expected lower production at the Fekola Complex.
In other news, B2Gold Corp. (NYSEAmerican:BTG) announced the distribution of $0.02 in cash dividends to all common shareholders on record as of March 6, 2026, payable on March 19.
