The average stock in the Russell 3,000 is already up 5.24% year-to-date after just four trading days. And to think, major indices were down ~1% on the first trading day of the year this past Monday. Below we highlight the average YTD performance of stocks by sector in the Russell 3,000. Remember, the Russell 3,000 contains large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps, and it covers roughly 98.5% of all US-traded market cap. As shown, Energy stocks have jumped out to the strongest start to the year with an average gain of 13.26%.  Materials rank second with a gain of 9.1%, and then Industrials, Financials, Health Care, and Consumer Discretionary are all bunched together with gains between 5% and 6%. Technology stocks — last year’s big leaders — are ‘only’ up 4.34% on average so far in 2021, while the Real Estate sector is the only one that has averaged declines.

Looking at Industry Groups, while Technology as a whole is underperforming a bit, the Semiconductor group (which are part of the Tech sector) is up big with average YTD gains of 9.4%. Autos are also performing very well with a gain of 9.2%. Thank you Tesla (TSLA).

There are already more than 600 stocks in the Russell 3,000 that are up more than 10% year-to-date. That represents 20% of the index.

Below is a look at the top-performing stocks so far in 2021. Usually, it takes weeks or months to see YTD gains like these, but we’ve gotten here in just four trading days.  3D Systems (DDD) ranks first with a gain of 119%, followed by Atomera (ATOM) at 70%, ViewRay (VRAY) at 59.5%, Arcturus (ARCT) at 54%, and Akerna (KERN) at 52%. We don’t fault you if you have never heard of these names!