There were a few surprises for the most popular charts of the year but the magnificent seven never seemed to lose its luster.
As we near the close of 2025, there were plenty of interesting developments in the market this year. International equities look like they’ll close out the year at the top of our major market ETF rankings in terms of annual performance. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) and the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA) will be the top two performing major market ETFs for the first time since 2006, presuming the rankings stay the same through the end of the year. Of course, it was a strong year for large cap domestic equities as well with the AI-related names building on their strong 2024 in 2025. On the commodities’ front, gold is having one of its best years ever with a nearly 70% gain and outpacing the S&P 500 by over 50%. While we remain in a US equity-dominated market, it has been a great year for those that wanted other options outside the core US. A fun way to see how our users have handled this shifting market landscape is by looking at the most clicked on charts for the year. One can usually guess the most visited charts but there are always some surprises about what does and doesn’t rank highly each year.
Expected: Mag Seven’s Reign Continues
This year’s most clicked on charts are littered with the Magnificent Seven with all seven falling in the top 20 most visited charts. Other individual stock names that were expectedly high up on the most visited charts were Palantir (PLTR), Broadcom (AVGO), and Oracle (ORCL). From an ETF standpoint, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) were the most visited charts this year with roughly an equal number of visitors. However, the chart for the S&P 500 Index (SPX) had more than both SPY and QQQ individually, so it’s only fair to give the edge to the S&P 500 as the most popular. With gold’s electric run this year, it’s also not a surprise to find it amongst the most popular charts this year.
Unexpected: International Remains Unpopular and Healthcare Shakes Off Poor Relative Strength
As mentioned earlier, this has been the best relative year for international equities in nearly 20 years but neither EEM and EFA could crack the top 75 most visited charts finishing behind charts like Lockheed Martin (LMT) and the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT). IBIT is down 5.58% year-to-date. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and Eli Lilly (LLY) were popular charts this year. While LLY’s popularity makes a lot of sense as it is up nearly 40% this year, UNH is down roughly 35%. Admittedly, UNH is a very popular name and had a large news-driven decline but it being the 16th most visited chart is a bit surprising. UNH finished ahead of other stocks like Netflix (NFLX), Costco (COST), and J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM). As this year comes to an end we’ll see if precious metals and international equities can build on an exceptional 2025 while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) tries to put together four consecutive years of at least 20% annual returns.
