In September, the S&P 500 index of 500 of America's biggest companies rose by 3.5%. That might not seem like a lot, but remember that it represents just one month's performance. Plenty of S&P 500 companies contributed to that rise, and some did far better than that during the month.
The top three performers were Warner Bros. Discovery, AppLovin, and Western Digital, rising 68.1%, 49.2%, and 46.6%, respectively.
What other companies did well? Here are five solid S&P 500 outperformers from September.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Robinhood Markets, up 42%
Robinhood Markets (HOOD -1.47%), an online trading platform, can attribute much of its increase to it being added to the aforementioned S&P 500 index. Being added to it means every S&P 500 index fund manager will need to buy shares -- sending share prices up. You might think twice before buying, though, as shares seem overvalued.
2. Micron Technology, up 42%
Micron Technology (MU -2.67%), the memory chip specialist, rose mainly on a strong earnings report and bullish forecasts from management. Its future is promising, as the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) requires more memory.
3. Intel, up 38.6%
Intel (INTC -0.08%) shares rose partly due to Nvidia investing $5 billion in the company. This follows major investment announcements in August as well. Bullishness from Micron Technology also pushed shares of Intel higher, as the memory specialist expects growth in PCs and servers, requiring Intel chips.
4. Oracle, up 24.8%
Oracle (ORCL 3.06%) shares surged on news that the company's long-term performance obligations for its cloud unit soared by 359%. (That's a huge backlog of orders.) The big jump was due to OpenAI signing a $300 billion agreement to rent AI compute capacity from Oracle.
5. Palantir Technologies, up 16.1%
Palantir Technologies (PLTR -0.78%) also benefited from increased expectations for the growth of AI -- and a boffo second-quarter earnings report, featuring revenue up 48% year over year.
These are all impressive performances, but remember that it's only over a month, and that stocks can be volatile over short periods.
