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.

Overall, EQNR ranks 9th on our list of hottest large-cap stocks so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of EQNR 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 EQNR 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.