The S&P 500's Thanksgiving Leftovers in May 2026

Six months and two earnings seasons have come and gone since Thanksgiving 2025 when we were introduced to the worst performing stocks of the S&P 500 (Index: INX). How many of those 10 stocks have seen their fortunes improve and how many are proving to be an even bigger investment turkey than they appeared on the day after last Thanksgiving?

Let’s cut to the chase! Here are the relative winners as measured by the percentage of their stock price recorded value on 28 November 2025:

• Dow Inc. (NYSE: DOW) – 148.1%.
• Deckers Outdoor (NYSE: DECK) – 126.6%.
• Molina Healthcare (NYSE: MOH) – 118.9%.

The stock price of these S&P 500 component companies are all higher than they were on 28 November 2026 and are also beating the S&P 500′s growth, which has risen to 109.8% of its day-after-Thanksgiving-Day-2025 level. What each of these companies have in common is improved business performance combined with an improved outlook for their earnings.

Meanwhile, all seven of the other Thanksgiving Leftover stocks have experienced continuing declines in their stock prices. Here they are, ranked from best-to-worst performing over the past six months:

• Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) – 93.6%
• Fiserv (NASDAQ: FISV) – 90.5%
• Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE: ARE) – 90.3%
• Factset Research Systems (NYSE: FDS) – 83.3%
• Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ: LULU) – 69.1%
• Gartner (NYSE: IT) – 67.8%
• Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) – 56.1%

The following spaghetti chart shows how each performed throughout the last six months:

Since our last update, Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ: LULU) has taken the most negative turn for the worse. The athletic apparel company is struggling to sell its mostly foreign-made clothing line in the U.S. after hiking prices to cover the cost of new tariffs. But higher costs are not the “athleisure” clothing company’s biggest problem. Its latest products have been on the wrong side of fashion trends as it faces increased competition.

If that weren’t enough, the company’s top management is involved in war of words with Chip Wilson, the company’s founder, who criticized them for losing the company’s “cool” factor.

TLDR: Poorly managed Lululemon has become costly and unfashionable with few indications that will change anytime soon, sending its stock price even lower.

Breaking away from the ongoing drama of a failing business, the next chart reveals how the performance of the Thanksgiving 2025 Leftover stocks compares as a group with the S&P 500 index, both as a market-cap weighted index and as an equal-weighted index.

By both grouping methods, the Thanksgiving Leftover stocks are substantially underperforming the S&P 500 index.

Compared to a month ago, the equal-weighted group is close to the same, but the market-cap weighted group is worse off. If you went double-or-nothing in betting whether the Thanksgiving Leftover stocks were going to be doing better or worse than they were a month ago, we’d have to give the edge to worse this month.