Is Diamondback Energy (FANG) the Hottest Large-Cap Stock So Far in 2025?

We recently published a list of 10 Hottest Large-Cap Stocks So Far in 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Diamondback Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG) stands against other hottest large-cap stocks so far in 2025.

The stock market as a whole hasn’t had a great start to the year, but there have been some outliers. Focusing on these outliers might pay off in the long run and the statistics behind it — especially this month — are very important. The S&P 500’s calendar year performance has matched the direction of January returns approximately 77% of the time. This means when January shows positive returns, the market finishes higher in 84% of these years with an average annual return of 15.5% for the whole year.

Even if January is negative, the market ends higher some 63% of the time, but with a return of around 2.2%. I’m bringing this up because I believe this correlation can also extend to certain stocks. We’ve seen many mega-cap tech stocks perform well last year after a solid January. A lot of big-cap stocks between $50 billion to $100 billion also performed well.

Accordingly, the methodology for this article involves me screening the top 10 stocks traded in U.S. markets with a market capitalization between $50 billion to $100 billion and then sorted by year-to-date performance.

A pipeline worker overseeing the flow of crude oil into storage tanks from an integrated water system.

Diamondback Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG)

• YTD Performance: 6.5%

Diamondback Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG) is another oil company on this list. I believe that no oil company is truly “special.” You’ll likely find FANG stock at a much bigger discount when the economic pendulum swings the other way and energy demand dampens.

It’s still worth looking at in the meantime, though. The top-line increase is due to a merger with Endeavor Energy Resources which immediately boosted the company’s production. In the third quarter, Diamondback (NASDAQ:FANG) generated about $1.2 billion in net cash from operating activities while holding capital expenditures to about $688 million. This gives them a fairly healthy cushion of cash flow. Plus, they repurchased roughly 2.9 million shares in the quarter and bumped up their share-repurchase authorization to $6 billion.

The dividend yield is at 4.67% right now, so it’s far from a bad deal.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.