Is Equinor (EQNR) 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 Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) 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 worker in a hard hat standing in front of a giant oil refinery, the stark blue sky and grey refinery in the background.

Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR)

• YTD Performance: 3.8%

Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) is an oil and gas company and the YTD performance here is thanks to a small recovery from its lackluster performance since August 2022. The stock is still down 38.6% since then.

Regardless, I do think that it is more attractive than most energy stocks at its current valuation since you’re paying less than 8 times earnings due to the dip and you can sit on a 6.9% dividend yield as it recovers. There’s a good amount of upside potential ahead, and combined with the dividends, I think it is a better deal than most other energy companies.

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