Here are 10 stocks Goldman Sachs expects to be winners after a wild first half for the market
The basket has outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year, gaining 3% year-to-date.
The S&P 500's overall risk-adjusted return has been lower than usual so far this year, strategists said.
It's been a volatile year for stock traders, but there are a handful of new winners in the S&P 500 that could be poised for big gains over the next 12 months, according to Goldman Sachs.
In a note to clients on Friday, the bank said it updated its Sharpe Ratio basket, a list of 50 stocks with the highest expected risk-adjusted returns. So far, the basket has gained 3% year-to-date, edging past the S&P 500's 1.7% gain.
The S&P 500's overall risk-adjusted return has been "lower than usual" so far in 2025, the strategists said, pointing to increased volatility and lower-than-average returns stemming from fears around tariffs.
The bank rebalanced its portfolio by choosing stocks with a high prospective Sharpe Ratio, a gauge for risk-adjusted returns calculated by dividing a percentage return to a stock's consensus 12-month price target by its six-month option-implied volatility.
"Currently, the median S&P 500 stock is expected to post an 11% return to its 12-month consensus price target with a 6-month implied volatility of 28, yielding a prospective risk-adjusted return of 0.4," the bank wrote.
Here are the top 10 newest additions to Goldman's Sharpe basket.
1. Moderna
Ticker: MRNA
Return to consensus price target: 88%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.3
2. Viatris
ELSA BIYICK/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Ticker: VTRS
Return to consensus price target: 61%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.5
3. Enphase Energy
Ticker: ENPH
Return from consensus price target: 45%
4. PG&E Corp
Ticker: PCG
Return to consensus price target: 45%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.1
5. Thermo Fisher Scientific
Return to consensus price target: 42%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.2
6. Fiserv
Ticker: FI
Return to consensus price target: 37%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.2
7. Cooper Companies
EyeEmTicker: COO
Return to consensus price target: 37%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.2
8. Salesforce
Ticker: CRM
Return to consensus price target: 37%
Expected return over implied volatility: 1.1
9. Lennar Corp
Ticker: LEN
Return to consensus price target: 34%
Expected return over implied volatility: 0.9
10. EPAM Systems
Return to consensus price target: 33%
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The chemicals and materials businesses, including sustainable refrigerants, chemicals needed to make semiconductors and materials for carbon capture. Boring stuff but stuff that tends to be No. 1 in its category. The advanced materials business seems to be the legacy of Allied Chemical, which became Allied Signal, before merging with Honeywell. On last week's earnings call , management updated the timing on the breakup, saying the spinoff of advanced materials will happen in the fourth quarter. The other two are slated for the second half of 2026. At no point will these divisions be static. When there is something that can be done to make each better, it will be done, like the acquisition of Carrier 's global security business for $4.9 billion last year, a great price because Carrier needed to get to investment grade and did so by selling the division to Honeywell. Vimal Kapur, who became Honeywell's CEO in June 2023, takes after Dave Cote, the CEO before Darius Adamczyk. Cote is a legendary figure when it comes to creating value. I give you that history because Honeywell's stock, as of Friday's close, was down 0.7% year to date versus the S & P 500 's gain of 8.6% in 2025. Shares of Honeywell are trading nowhere near where they will trade as the split comes to fruition. Oddly, if it weren't breaking up, I think, at this point, it would trade higher than it does right now after that astonishing collapse last week based on, well, nothing. There was a margin issue in one division that will be fixed. There were two underperforming segments that will most likely go. There will be three companies that will either stand on their own or be bought by private equity, although the scarcity in aerospace company coupled with a pro-merger Federal Trade Commission will probably make that company a takeover target almost immediately. HON 1M mountain Honeywell 1-month performance While I have no idea why Honeywell's stock really collapsed, I can take the conspiratorial view, that some of the hedge funds who were short Kohl's decided to blow me up using a complex method of call buying and shorting. I know it seems phantasmagorical. But, when I started my Charitable Trust, whose holdings make up the CNBC Investing Club portfolio, I played open-handed and took fire quite often — even dealing with some who hinted that's exactly what they were doing. That's a dangerous game. I know what I am doing. I make mistakes, but a company like Honeywell — and Dover and DuPont , for that matter — are not among them. The Club owns all three. Another possible reason: Honeywell's structure could be too hard to understand. There are a huge number of divisions within divisions. You could ChatGPT these all day long and not figure out how they come together. But that's OK. That's what is being rectified by the planned split. 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While building automation within Honeywell has some, it is obviously not enough. What's my conviction based on then? How can I believe in Honeywell's stock, which does a beat and raise and it gets clobbered anyway; or that it has had a previous ones that were also poorly received, too? I give you a few reasons. First, discouragement is not a good quality to base an investment decision on. That's what I did with Emerson . It had two shortfalls, and I decided that its reorganization based around electrification wasn't going to work. I bolted after the second one. My total bad. They got it together even after a hostile bid that they won, and this very difficult to understand ugly duckling became a swan. I felt the same way with Oracle . The company had made a somewhat dispiriting acquisition of medical records company Cerner, and I had no idea what the hell that was about. Then it decided to get into data centers. Not once, but twice, they disappointed in their data center goal. I was livid. So, I kicked it out. It then ran higher. I had isolated two fantastic stock ideas. And, just when they got hammered a second time, I fled, right before they were recognized as great situations by everyone. I can't let that happen again. Curiously, the pain was the greatest after that second miss, when people were truly fed up. This one is the worst and, yet, I would argue it wasn't as bad a miss, if it were a miss at all. Second, people don't believe that Kapur can actually improve each of the three companies that are developing. They fear lost focus. They fear economic cycles. They fear that he is in the "wrong" industries even as private equity firms are routinely in the wrong industries, yet they are fine. Kapur knows how to multitask. Three, there is tremendous fright here in the way Honeywell stock trades, The moves are particularly vicious. They are from peak to trough, tremendously ugly, devoid of any support whatsoever. I wish I had an answer to this one. 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