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S&P 500

Investors $173B richer today from 10 stocks

Matt Krantz
USA TODAY
A file photograph dated 10 April 2008 shows the Google logo at the Belgrave House in central London, Britain.

Big market sell-offs can turn into big profits for investors who are brave enough to jump in when others are freaking out.

Ask the investors who scored $173 billion, just today, from 10 stocks. Ten stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500, including online advertising company Google (GOOGL), digital gadget-maker Apple (AAPL) and tech giant Microsoft (MSFT), are up an average of 5.5% Wednesday. The companies' stock values are big enough to generate massive paper gains to help repair a good chunk of the damage suffered by investors from the sell-off.

Gains from just these 10 stocks account for about quarter of the $682 billion in market value created in the S&P 500 Wednesday. The S&P 500 rallied 73 points, or 3.9%, to 1,941 as it attempted to make up some of the massive losses since the May 21 top.

These 10 impressive stock rebounds, and the tremendous wealth they've created, highlight the huge stakes involved as investors try to gauge whether the market's recent sell-off was just a fleeting event and a buying opportunity, or the start of something worse. The S&P 500, which had fallen into a correction and was down 12% from its high Wednesday, has attracted buyers looking to scoop up deals. The market measure is now out of correction territory, yet it closed down 8.8% from its high.

Google shares are up 18% since the stock market peaked in May.

Gains Wednesday from these 10 giant stocks help, but they are still a drop in the bucket. The S&P 500 is still down $1.6 trillion in value since the top. These 10 stocks, even after the session's rally, are still down $183 billion from the market's peak and are responsible for 11% of the market's total losses.

"There's been a lot of sell programs, and when that selling dried up, there was nothing to put a cap on this market," says Fane Lozman, chairman of market research firm Scanshift.com.

Google has proved to be somewhat of the correction leader. The stock rose 8% to $659.69 a share Wednesday , adding back $32 billion into the pockets of investors in a single trading session. Interestingly, the stock is actually up 18% since the broad market's May 21 peak.

Apple also gained 5.7% to close at $109.69, giving investors some much needed rest from the stock's beatdown. Wednesday's gains put back $33 billion back onto this much-watched stock's value. But that's just a drop in the bucket of repairing the pain. Apple has lost $124 billion in market value, or 17%, since the market's peak. That means Apple has single-handedly destroyed more value than any other stock in the S&P 500 — even after the day's rally.

Investors are hoping the rest of the market can finally repair some of the damage that's been inflicted on it. But for now,  investors are happy to get somewhat a big lift from these stocks. And what a lift it is.

Big gains in 10 S&P 500 companies generated massive one-day profits for investors.
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