As we gather around our Thanksgiving tables, there’s an abundance of reasons to be grateful beyond the traditional turkey and trimmings. The investment landscape of 2025 has served up a remarkable feast of returns, with certain asset classes delivering performances that would make even the most seasoned financial advisor ask for seconds. Like a perfectly orchestrated holiday meal, different investment sectors have contributed their unique flavors to creating an exceptionally satisfying year for equity investors.
Now is the perfect time to give thanks to the investments, sectors and asset classes that have provided investors with plentiful returns during the first ten months of 2025.
What investments are you grateful for?
The Main Course: Technology’s Continued Dominance
At the head of our investment table sits the undisputed champion of 2025 through October: the information technology sector (S&P 500 Information Technology Sector index), which has maintained its position as the year’s best-performing sector with an impressive 29.93% year-to-date return. Leading this charge with the grace of a perfectly carved centerpiece is NVIDIA, which produced a 50.82% return on its way to achieving yet another historic milestone by becoming the world’s first $5 trillion company in October 2025.
In addition to NVIDIA, we owe deep gratitude to the broader information technology sector. AI linked companies like Western Digital Corp. (WDC, 234%), Seagate Technology Holdings (STX, 201%), Micron Technology (MU, 166%) and Palantir Technologies (PLTR, 165%) surged during the first ten months of the year.
Furthermore, the “Magnificent Seven” technology giants continued to set the table for market success in 2025 with a strong 24.55% return for the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS). Microsoft, Google (Alphabet), and Amazon have maintained their positions as AI infrastructure leaders, with their combined investments creating a foundation for continued technological advancement. These companies’ commitment to AI development has created ripple effects throughout the technology ecosystem, benefiting suppliers, chip manufacturers, and service providers.
Figure 1: Source – Zephyr
The Supporting Stars: Communication Services and Utilities Shine
Our investment Thanksgiving table wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the impressive contributions from communication services (S&P 500 Communication Services Sector index), which claimed the second-best sector performance with a 26.82% year-to-date return. This sector’s success reflects the increasing importance of digital infrastructure and connectivity in our AI-driven economy.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Utilities, represented by the S&P 500 Utilities Sector index, emerged as an unexpected guest at our gratitude feast, delivering a robust 20.17% year-to-date return to claim the third-best sector performance. This remarkable showing demonstrates how the massive energy demands of AI data centers have transformed what was traditionally considered a sleepy, dividend-focused sector into a growth story.
Figure 2: Source – Zephyr
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The Broad Market Bounty: S&P 500’s Stellar Performance
The S&P 500 index deserves a place of honor at our gratitude table, delivering impressive gains throughout 2025. The index rose 8.12% in the third quarter alone, bringing year-to-date through October gains to 17.52%, demonstrating remarkable resilience and strength across multiple quarters.
Large-cap growth stocks continued their winning streak, with the Russell 1000 Growth index gaining 21.50%, significantly outperforming the Russell 1000 Value index’s 12.15% return. This performance differential highlights how growth-oriented companies, particularly those positioned to benefit from AI transformation, continued to capture investors’ imagination and capital throughout 2025.
Figure 3: Source – Zephyr
Small Caps Join the Celebration
One of 2025’s most pleasant surprises has been the participation of small-cap equities in the market’s success story. The Russell 2000 index returned an impressive 12.39% year-to-date through October, demonstrating that the benefits of the current market environment extended beyond mega-cap technology companies.
Let’s also pause to recognize the international contributions to portfolio performance. International equities have provided compelling diversification benefits throughout 2025, with the MSCI EAFE index delivering strong performance and outperforming U.S. markets during the year with an 27.21% return.
Emerging Markets deserve special recognition for their remarkable turnaround story. After years of underperformance, the MSCI Emerging Markets index surged 33.59% year-to-date through October, outperforming developed markets (MSCI World index) by 13.38%. The strong outperformance by foreign developed and emerging market equities demonstrated that global diversification continued to reward patient investors.
Figure 4: Source – Zephyr
The Data Center Revolution: Infrastructure as the Foundation
We must express deep gratitude for the data center boom that has underpinned much of 2025’s market success. McKinsey & Company researchers estimate that global data center spending will reach approximately $5.2 trillion over the next five years, creating sustained demand for AI chips, infrastructure, and supporting services.
This massive infrastructure buildout has created opportunities across multiple sectors, from semiconductor manufacturing to real estate development, from electrical utilities to cooling systems providers. The data center revolution has proven to be one of the most significant investment themes of 2025, creating value chains that extend far beyond the obvious technology beneficiaries.
Finishing the Feast Off with a Golden Dessert
Despite a stretched waistline, we cannot finish the feast without a stellar dessert. In 2025 that comes in the form of gold. Gold, measured by the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), has had a record rally during the first ten months of the year. The 53.16% return makes the asset worthy of the sweetest spot on the menu (Figure 1). Despite moving alongside stocks, putting in question their inverse relationship, gold’s sweet performance has been connected to inflation hedging, concerns about a stock market bubble and the debasement of the U.S. dollar.
A Toast to Innovation and Resilience
As we raise our glasses this Thanksgiving 2025, we celebrate not just impressive returns, but the underlying innovation and market resilience that drove them. The artificial intelligence revolution has created genuine, measurable value across industries, from semiconductor design to cloud infrastructure, from autonomous systems to personalized medicine.
The market’s performance in 2025 reminds us that technological transformation periods can create extraordinary opportunities for investors positioned to benefit from structural changes. The convergence of AI, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing has created multiple waves of innovation, each contributing to our investment feast.
This Thanksgiving, we give thanks not only for 2025’s impressive returns but for the reminder that markets reward innovation, patience, and the wisdom to maintain diversified exposure to transformative trends. As we look toward the remainder of 2025 and beyond, we carry forward lessons of gratitude: that technology continues to drive value creation, that global diversification remains essential, and that sometimes the most rewarding investments come from recognizing structural shifts before they become obvious to everyone.
Zephyr, is an award-winning asset and wealth management software that offers portfolio construction, proposal generation, advanced analytics, asset allocation, manager screening, risk analysis, portfolio performance and more, transforming multifaceted data into digestible intel.
Ryan Nauman is the Market Strategist at Zephyr, which helps investment professionals make more informed investment decisions on behalf of their clients. Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.
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