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.
Overall, FANG ranks 8th on our list of hottest large-cap stocks so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of FANG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than FANG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
