only a few dozen stocks are responsible for most of the movement of the stock market as reported by news media news media tends to focus on the dow jones industrial average the sp 500 and the nasdaq the sp 500 is considered a largecap index since most of the stocks in the sp 500 have a market capitalization of more than 10 billion only five stocks in the sp 500 are in the trilliondollar club as of november 12 2021 together they represent about a quarter of the market cap of the sp 500 the top 10 stocks represent about a third of the market cap of the sp 500 the top 25 stocks represent almost half of the market cap of the sp 500 and the top 75 stocks represent about twothirds of the market cap of the sp 500 the stocks in the sp 500 are weighted by market capitalization as opposed to equal weighting this means that the stocks with the greatest market capitalization have a bigger impact on the movement of the sp 500 than stocks with a greater return on investment but a much lower market capitalization the top 5 stocks by contribution to the movement of the sp 500 are responsible for more than a third of that movement the top 25 stocks contributed more than half and the top 50 stocks contributed more than twothirds here are the top 25 stocks ranked by contribution to the sp 500 based on oneyear returns as of november 12 2021 the ranking of stocks does change over time but the set of top stocks is fairly stable microsoft contributed 9 of the gains in the sp 500 and tesla contributed almost 8 if you were to eliminate the 100 stocks that contribute the least to the sp 500 you’d improve the return on investment by about a percentage point the dow jones industrial average represents slightly more than a quarter of the market cap of the sp 500 and contributes almost a quarter of the gains of the sp 500 all 30 stocks in the dow jones industrial average are in the sp 500 there is a strong correlation between the performance of the sp 500 and the dow jones industrial average about 08 on a 10 scale there is a much weaker correlation with the nasdaq this table shows the impact of each sector on the gains in the sp 500 based on oneyear returns as of november 12 2021 information technology is responsible for a third of the gains in the sp 500 followed by consumer discretionary and financials the energy sector had the highest oneyear average return on investment more than double that of the other sectors but represents only 3 of the market cap of the sp 500 diluting the impact of the gains the top three stocks by oneyear gains were all in the energy sector devon energy corp dvn marathon oil corp mro and diamondback energy inc fang followed by fortinet inc ftnt in information technology and moderna inc mrna in health care rounding out the top ten by return on investment are apache corp apa occidental petroleum corp oxy bath  body works inc bbwi tesla inc tsla and ford motor company f an additional 18 stocks doubled in value in the last year 12 of the stocks in the sp 500 lost value in the last 12 months including half of the stocks in the utilities sector and almost a third of the stocks in the consumer staples sector the dividend yield for the sp 500 weighted by market cap is about 13 these 15 stocks have a dividend yield of 5 or more as of november 12 2021 this article is based on oneyear gains and losses in the sp 500 through november 12 2021 results may change over time