8 Stocks That Are Crushing the Market in 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has proved to be little more than a hiccup to the market's steady march higher, with the S&P 500 up 11% year to date, right in line with its long-term historical average.

While that points to the resilience of the U.S. economy, a number of businesses have done better than that. Much better. Following are eight stocks that are crushing the market's return in 2020, making the index's results seem almost quaint in the process.

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Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) has been delivering more electric cars than ever and is still committed to delivering 500,000 vehicles this year as its factories, particularly its Shanghai plant, keep adding capacity.

CEO Elon Musk called the third quarter its best ever, and though competition in the electric vehicle space is only getting more intense, Tesla is also more than just its cars. Its energy business, for example, seems to be gaining traction once again, with solar shipments more than doubling sequentially.

While Tesla's successes have sent its stock soaring, sending its valuation to the stratosphere, it is growing into those metrics, and sales expansion ought to make them seem more reasonable in the near future.

ALSO READ: Little-Known Electric Vehicle Stocks to Watch

Electric vehicles have caught the imagination of investors in 2020, helping to drive Workhorse Group (Nasdaq: WKHS) and its fleet of electric delivery and utility vans higher.

Partnerships with UPS and Ryder primed the markets for big growth numbers, along with its bid on a big contract for U.S. Postal Service vehicles, for which it was described as the "best fit."

Yet its third-quarter earnings report somewhat deflated the enthusiasm, leading its stock to lose a third of its value from those highs, showing Workhorse remains a highly speculative company.

Freelance services provider Fiverr International (NYSE: FVRR) seems to be a business made for the pandemic. Allowing freelancers to connect with customers over the internet for services certainly gained traction during the crisis and helped highlight the value of the platform Fiverr built up over the past decade or so.

While its gig workers initially charged a $5 fee for their services, hence its name, its freelancers today are free to charge much more than that, and customers are still buying. Fiverr reported active buyers surged to 3.1 million in the third quarter, up from 2.3 million last year, while spend per buyer rose 20% to $195. Fiverr's own take increased 40 basis points to 27%.

The sixfold increase in its stock this year makes it seem as though Fiverr is only just getting ready to roll higher.

Hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power (Nasdaq: PLUG) continues to plug away at its aggressive reach target of $1 billion in annual sales by 2024, with third-quarter sales rising by 80% versus the year-ago period.

Analysts are jazzed by the potential for Plug to add a third "pedestal customer" to its roster that currently includes Amazon.com and Walmart, earning it a round of upgrades from Wall Street.

That doesn't mean Plug Power isn't still a speculative stock that has yet to find a way to be profitable, but more businesses keep buying into the potential for hydrogen fuel cells. Therefore, the company securing additional anchor customers could keep this stock rising as it closes in on its goal.

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There was a time Overstock.com (Nasdaq: OSTK) was considered an afterthought in e-commerce that was known more for the quirky antics of its founder than being a serious contender in internet retail. But those days are long behind it.

Like many of the other companies seeing outsize gains in their share prices, Overstock was driven higher by consumers responding to its value proposition and online shopping becoming a necessity during the pandemic, helping sales double in the third quarter.

But Overstock is also a blockchain proselytizer, and its tZero platform enjoyed a 20% surge in trading volume. It's beginning to make a small contribution to the overall business, indicating that once the health crisis is past, Overstock.com will continue to see growth.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

Another electric vehicle maker driving huge increases in 2020, Chinese entrant NIO (NYSE: NIO) benefited as its production efforts gained traction and it was able to produce 5,000 vehicles in one month in October, the first time it was able to do so.

Analysts have also gotten into the driver's seat, dramatically upgrading their outlook for the business because of the huge potential the Chinese market holds. While there's a lot of competition in that market -- not least from Tesla-- as the biggest of the bunch, it could have the most promise.

However, noted short-seller Citron Research thinks it no longer deserves its valuation, which caused NIO's stock to pare back some of its gains. A bubble of sorts has built up around electric vehicle makers, so investors ought to use caution, but NIO may have some open road ahead of it still.

The at-home fitness craze that has swept the country during the pandemic has helped lift home gym equipment maker Nautilus (NYSE: NLS) to record heights.

Yet it wasn't just being in the right place at the right time but also developing new equipment systems that fit today's lifestyles and didn't require you to take out a second mortgage on your home like other equipment makers do. Nautilus' new Bowflex barbell and curl weight system hit that sweet spot and sold out within 24 hours of being offered.

Some investors, hoping for a lot more from the company's third-quarter earnings as a result, were disappointed the report didn't show greater blowout numbers. The market fears a COVID-19 vaccine will allow gyms to reopen and lessen the enthusiasm for more home workouts, though that shouldn't be felt for several quarters to come, if at all.

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Novavax is the best-performing stock on the market by far, based precisely on its drive to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The more remarkable thing may be that the company has posted those gains despite the stock having been cut in half from the heights it reached at the beginning of August.

The biotech has seen a few setbacks, such as delays in starting some trials, and Pfizer and Moderna garnered most of the headlines this month when both announced that their separate coronavirus vaccine candidates saw success in late-stage trials.

Although Novavax is actually a lot more than a pandemic play and has a pipeline of therapies it is developing, the COVID-19 vaccine is a headline generator. Because it is involved in the accelerated development program for a vaccine, that will be what drives its stock. The next big development could be its report on the efficacy of its late-stage trial on NVX-CoV2373 in the U.K. early next year, which if positive, could see its stock marching to even higher highs in 2021.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And the higher they climb, the odds of an even bigger decline go up.

Certain themes surround all these stocks making the biggest moves in 2020, whether it's the pandemic or technologies for electric cars. Certainly no one could have predicted the impact a virus outbreak in China would have on the stock market and the world this year, so buying into many of these stocks ahead of time wouldn't have been an easy call to make.

Yet these are themes that could be with us for a while longer, and a number of these businesses have plenty of potential to rise next year and beyond, too.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Fiverr International, and Tesla and recommends the following options: short January 2022 $1940 calls on Amazon and long January 2022 $1920 calls on Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.