The top three stocks in June

Coinbase led the way, but what else made the list?

Stocks maintained their momentum in June, closing out one of the best quarters in several years.

Technology stocks led the surge, as the Nasdaq Composite rose 6.6% last month while the S&P 500 gained 4.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.3%.

It should come as no surprise then that the top three stocks on the S&P 500 in June were all technology stocks.

Here are the top 3 stocks on the S&P 500 in June

Coinbase Global

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN), the cryptocurrency trading platform, was the top performer in June, returning about 41% last month. Coinbase stock ended the month at about $350 per share, up around 41% year-to-date.

Coinbase had fluctuated with the ups and downs of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through the first five months of the year, but the stock really took off over the last two weeks of June.

There was one event in particular that thrust Coinbase higher in June, the passage by the U.S. Senate of the GENIUS Act, which creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S. When the GENIUS Act passed on June 17, Coinbase was trading at around $257 per share. The 36% spike to $350 per share was almost entirely due to the excitement around this major legislative breakthrough.

A regulatory framework for stablecoins will improve the mainstream appeal of stablecoins and lead to expanded offerings and a bigger market, which will help Coinbase.

Coinbase stock is trading at 65 times earnings after the surge. The median price target is $293 per share, suggesting a 13% decline.

Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is a venerable name in the technology world, known for its suite of enterprise software products for businesses. But in recent years it has leaned more heavily into data storage and AI cloud services, driven by the rise in AI data centers.

Earlier this year, Oracle announced it was part of a massive $500 billion effort to build data centers in the U.S., and the fruits of that started to show in the latest quarter.

The reason Oracle stock rose some 32% in June to around $219 per share was because it released its earnings in June. Most technology companies have already released earnings this late in a quarter, but Oracle has the distinction of doing it towards the end of the quarter.

Oracle released its fiscal fourth quarter earnings on June 11 and the stock price spiked some 15% the next day. Oracle had a huge quarter, beating estimates, but investors were more excited about its robust outlook, fueled by new partnerships and huge expected growth from a tripling of multi-cloud datacenter partnerships.

Oracle has a P/E ratio of 50 and a median price target of $220 per share, suggesting 1% growth.

Micron Technology

Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) is another big tech company that reports its earnings late in the quarter, but it wasn’t earnings that drove its 31% gain in June.

Micron, which makes memory and storage chips, got a boost from a June 12 announcement that Micron is expanding its investments in U.S. memory chip manufacturing. That includes approximately $150 billion in domestic memory manufacturing and $50 billion in R&D. Further, Micron plans to invest an additional $30 billion to build manufacturing facilities in Boise, Manassas, Va., and New York.

The earnings came out on June 25, and Micron stock actually sank a bit, despite having a strong quarter and a better-than-expected outlook. It may have been in reaction to the stock running too hot, as it’s up about 44% YTD.

Micron is trading at just 22 times earnings and 10 times forward earnings. It still has a ton of upside with a price target of $150 per share, indicating a 24% return over the next year.