Markets are weird. Honestly, if you looked at the headlines in early 2025, you’d have thought the sky was falling. We had the S&P 500 sliding nearly 5% and the Nasdaq taking a brutal 10.4% hit. People were panicking about trade wars with Canada and those massive 25% steel tariffs that kicked in around mid-month. It felt like the "AI fever" that carried 2024 was finally breaking.
But here’s the thing: while the "Magnificent 7" were getting crushed—down 25% from their highs at one point—a handful of stocks were actually having the time of their lives.
Looking back at the top performing stocks March 2025, it wasn't the usual tech suspects leading the charge. It was defense contractors, discount retailers, and even a video game publisher. It’s a classic reminder that the "market" isn't a monolith. Even when the big indices look like a sea of red, there are always pockets of green if you know where to look.
The Unlikely Winners: Shipbuilding and Dollar Stores
If you told a casual investor in 2024 that a discount retailer and a submarine builder would be the kings of March 2025, they’d have laughed. Yet, that’s exactly what happened.
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII)
Huntington Ingalls was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the S&P 500 this month. The stock surged 16.9% (some reports even say 16.2%, but the YCharts data pegs the total return slightly higher).
Why? It wasn't just random luck.
In March 2025, a joint session of Congress basically laid out a "revitalization plan" for U.S. shipbuilding. National security was the buzzword. Suddenly, the company responsible for our aircraft carriers and submarines was sitting on a potential $50 billion tailwind of contract awards. For a stock that had been mostly "meh" for years, it was a massive wake-up call for institutional investors.
Dollar General (DG)
Then there’s Dollar General. After a disastrous 2024 where it felt like they couldn't get anything right, they became the market's favorite comeback story. The stock jumped 18.5% in March.
It's a "bad news is good news" play. As consumer confidence dipped and people started worrying about inflation hitting 3.5% due to new tariffs, they stopped shopping at high-end grocers and flocked to the dollar stores. Management finally got their act together on inventory too. It was a perfect storm of bargain-hunting shoppers and a stock that was simply too cheap to ignore at a P/E of 17.
Crypto Proxies and Gaming Hits
While the Nasdaq was busy tumbling 10%, a couple of names in the tech and communication sectors managed to defy gravity.
- Strategy (MSTR): Formerly known as MicroStrategy, this company basically became a Bitcoin vault with a software business attached. Even though Bitcoin itself was a bit shaky in March, MSTR rose 12.9%. They played a smart hand by raising $711 million through preferred stock to buy even more Bitcoin. Investors loved the aggression.
- Electronic Arts (EA): EA caught a massive tailwind thanks to a single game: Split Fiction. It sold 2 million copies in its first week. When you're pulling in $100 million in revenue from one launch while the rest of the market is sweating over trade policy, your stock tends to go up. They finished the month up 11.9%.
Sector Breakdown: Where the Money Actually Went
It’s easy to get distracted by individual tickers, but the real story of March 2025 was the sector rotation. Investors were terrified of "cyclical" stocks—the stuff that needs a booming economy to work.
Instead, they hid in Utilities and Consumer Staples. Philip Morris (PM) was up 12.5%. WR Berkley (WRB) gained 13%. These are "defensive" plays. They aren't sexy. They don't build AI robots. But they pay dividends and they don't go bust when a trade war starts.
Actually, Energy was the only other sector that really held its own. Expand Energy (EXE) and The Mosaic Co (MOS) both posted double-digit gains. When uncertainty hits, people buy "stuff"—food, energy, and gold. Speaking of gold, it actually crossed $3,000 an ounce for the first time ever in March. That tells you everything you need to know about the mood on Wall Street.
What Most People Got Wrong
The biggest misconception during this period was that the "AI trade" was dead. It wasn't dead; it was just maturing.
While NVIDIA (+9.8%) and Meta (+10.2%) actually managed to stay positive, they weren't the hyper-growth engines they were in 2023. The market started demanding real earnings, not just "AI potential." This is why companies like Super Micro Computer (SMCI) still saw a 10.9% bump—they were actually shipping hardware.
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Another thing: people focused too much on the U.S.
If you had looked at international markets (the MSCI EAFE index), you would have seen they were only down 0.3%. The "top performing stocks" conversation often ignores the fact that European and Japanese markets were actually holding up way better than the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
Actionable Insights for the "New" Market
So, what do we do with this? If you’re looking at the wreckage of March and trying to plan for the rest of the year, here’s the reality:
Watch the "Other 493." For two years, everyone obsessed over the Magnificent 7. March 2025 proved that the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 are finally getting their day. The equal-weight S&P 500 only fell about 3.4% compared to the Nasdaq's double-digit drop. Diversification isn't just a boring rule your CPA tells you; it actually saved portfolios this month.
Defense and Infrastructure are no longer "sleepy." Between HII and companies like Constellation Energy, it’s clear that government-adjacent spending is a massive theme. Whether it's power for data centers or ships for the Navy, the "guaranteed" revenue from government policy is outperforming the "speculative" revenue from consumer tech.
Stop ignoring the boring stuff. Stocks like Dollar General and Philip Morris showed that when the economy gets "kinda" weird, the companies that sell things people need (or are addicted to) are the ones that stay afloat.
Next Steps for Your Portfolio:
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- Check your concentration: If more than 20% of your portfolio is in three tech names, you likely felt the March burn. Rebalancing toward defensive sectors like Healthcare or Utilities isn't "giving up" on growth; it's protecting it.
- Monitor the Tariff Impact: Keep a close eye on retail margins. Companies like Dollar General proved they could handle it, but others with high-cost supply chains are going to struggle.
- Look for "Self-Help" Stories: Huntington Ingalls didn't just go up because of the market; it went up because of a specific policy shift. Seek out companies with clear, multi-year contract backlogs that aren't tied to daily consumer spending.
The carnage of March 2025 was a wake-up call, but for the disciplined investor, it was also a roadmap for where the real money is moving: away from the hype and back toward the fundamentals.