June 17, 2026 · BriMindInvest Research Team · 12 min read
The best momentum stocks are not just rising — they're rising because their fundamentals are accelerating. CrowdStrike, GE Vernova, and NVIDIA lead the trailing 12-month momentum screen as of August 2026, while several June 2026 picks (Meta, Constellation Energy, Palantir, Axon) have reversed sharply. Here's the complete list with multi-period return data and the investment thesis for each.
Updated August 16, 2026 — major momentum reversal since this post's June launch
This is a genuine momentum crash for several of the original picks: Meta, Constellation Energy, Palantir, and Axon have all turned negative on a trailing 12-month basis (Meta -24%, CEG -13%, PLTR -4%, AXON -18%), even though Palantir and Axon have staged sharp 3-month recoveries (+30% and +58%). CrowdStrike is now the strongest 12-month performer (+104%, up from +42%), GE Vernova remains strong (+70%, down from +95%), and NVIDIA's momentum has cooled to +24% from +48% with a negative trailing 3-month return. NVDA, META, and CEG have all fallen out of MTUM's top-25 holdings entirely — only GEV remains, at #10. SpaceX (SPCX) round-tripped from a $225 peak to a $105 trough and now sits near $140, barely above its $135 IPO price. Figures as of Aug 14, 2026 market close (stockanalysis.com, Yahoo Finance, tipranks.com).
Momentum investing is the strategy of buying stocks that have recently outperformed and selling (or avoiding) stocks that have recently underperformed. The core insight: stocks that outperformed over the past 3–12 months tend to continue outperforming over the next 3–12 months before eventually reverting.
This is one of the most empirically robust findings in all of finance — confirmed across 40+ countries and 200+ years of market data. The behavioral explanations:
Unlike value investing (which has an intuitive risk-based explanation), momentum's persistence is primarily behavioral. Four mechanisms are well-documented:
The standard academic and practitioner definition of momentum is:
The exclusion of the most recent month avoids short-term price reversal (a separate documented effect where last month's winners tend to slightly reverse in the next month). Key variations:
| ETF | Ticker | ER | AUM | Rebalance | Concentration | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iShares MSCI USA Momentum | MTUM | 0.15% | ~$15B | Semi-annual (May/Nov) | ~125 stocks | MSCI USA Momentum |
| Invesco S&P 500 Momentum | SPMO | 0.13% | ~$2B | Quarterly | ~100 stocks | S&P 500 Momentum |
| Alpha Architect Quant Momentum | QMOM | 0.29% | ~$400M | Quarterly | ~50 stocks | Proprietary |
| JPMorgan US Momentum Factor | JMOM | 0.12% | ~$500M | Quarterly | ~200 stocks | JP Morgan US Momentum |
| Invesco DWA Momentum | PDP | 0.62% | ~$1B | Quarterly | ~100 stocks | Dorsey Wright Technical Leaders |
The three leading momentum ETFs take meaningfully different approaches:
Rebalances only twice per year (May and November), using large, liquid US stocks. Risk-adjusted momentum scores (divides return by volatility). This semi-annual rebalance makes it slow to adapt to changing conditions — it may hold stale positions late into a momentum regime. Best for: set-and-forget momentum exposure with low turnover. Tax efficient due to infrequent rebalancing.
Quarterly rebalance from S&P 500 universe. Cheapest systematic momentum ETF. Slightly more responsive to changing momentum regimes than MTUM. Best for: cost-minimizing investors who want momentum exposure from only large-cap S&P 500 stocks.
Most concentrated pure momentum play — holds ~50 stocks ranked by 12-month minus 1-month return, with an additional quality screen (profitability filter). High annual turnover (100%+) creates tax drag in taxable accounts. Best held in IRA/401k. Best for: investors with strong conviction in pure momentum factor, willing to accept high concentration and tax cost for potentially stronger factor exposure.
Momentum's Achilles heel is the "momentum crash" — periodic, severe reversals where momentum portfolios suffer catastrophic losses in a very short time. Historical examples:
How to manage: diversify momentum exposure with other factors (quality, value); use absolute momentum rules to exit when the trend reverses; size momentum as a portion of a diversified portfolio rather than the whole strategy.
Academic and practitioner research consistently finds that combining the momentum factor with the quality/profitability factor produces better risk-adjusted returns than either factor alone:
Momentum doesn't only apply to individual stocks — sector rotation is one of the oldest and most institutionally used forms of momentum investing:
Returns are approximate price returns as of the Aug 14, 2026 market close. Stocks sorted by 12-month trailing return, descending. SPCX is measured from IPO date (June 12, 2026). AI scores from BriMindInvest composite model.
| Ticker | AI Score | 3M Return | 6M Return | 12M Return | Mkt Cap | Fwd P/E | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRWD | 88 | +50% | +102% | +104% | $221B | 166x | Cybersecurity AI |
| GEV | 82 | -3% | +33% | +70% | $278B | 49x | Grid / Energy |
| NVDA | 78 | -4% | +23% | +24% | $5.5T | 23x | AI Chips |
| SPCX | 70 | +4% | +4% | +4% | $1.9T | 90x | Space / Launch |
| PLTR | 74 | +30% | +32% | -4% | $418B | 91x | AI Defense |
| CEG | 68 | +3% | -2% | -13% | $100B | 23x | Nuclear Power |
| AXON | 71 | +58% | +43% | -18% | $50B | 68x | Public Safety AI |
| META | 62 | -5% | -8% | -24% | $1.5T | 18x | AI / Social |
CrowdStrike's Falcon platform provides cloud-native endpoint detection and response (EDR) security, and the stock has been the standout momentum performer in this group, more than doubling over the trailing 12 months as the company fully rebuilt customer trust after its 2024 outage incident.
Net revenue retention above 120% shows existing customers are still expanding their spend, and the stock's acceleration in both the 3-month (+50%) and 6-month (+102%) windows signals genuinely strengthening momentum, not just a one-time re-rating. CrowdStrike's AI-native detection engine remains a differentiator against legacy, signature-based competitors.
At roughly 166x forward earnings, CRWD now carries the richest valuation in the group after its run — a huge share of the past year's gain is multiple expansion, and any growth deceleration or renewed reliability incident would hit the stock hard from this level.
GE Vernova, spun off from General Electric, makes the gas turbines, grid equipment, and wind hardware that utilities need to build out power capacity — demand for which has surged as AI data centers strain the US electrical grid. It remains the only one of the original picks still in MTUM's top-10 holdings.
The gas turbine order backlog is sold out multiple years forward, giving unusually clear revenue visibility for an industrial company. Grid equipment demand is structurally supported by both AI data center buildout and long-overdue transmission infrastructure upgrades across the US.
A slightly negative 3-month return shows the stock has cooled off after its huge run — any slowdown in data center construction announcements, or a shift toward on-site nuclear/renewable alternatives that reduces reliance on new gas turbine capacity, would extend the pullback. The wind business remains a weaker, more cyclical segment.
NVIDIA supplies the GPUs that train and run most of the world's large AI models, and its data center segment — Blackwell-generation chips sold to hyperscalers, cloud providers, and enterprises — remains the dominant driver of company revenue, even as the stock's momentum has decelerated.
At a much lower ~23x forward P/E than earlier in 2026, NVDA's valuation has reset even as data center demand remains structurally strong. CUDA software lock-in and a multi-generation architecture roadmap make it hard for customers to switch, even as competitors close the raw-hardware gap.
The stock's negative 3-month return signals the market is actively digesting questions about AI capex sustainability among hyperscalers. NVDA has also fallen out of MTUM's top-25 holdings as of August 2026 — a sign systematic momentum strategies have already rotated away from it.
Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) is deployed across US military commands and a fast-growing roster of commercial customers. The stock round-tripped in 2026 — a steep mid-year drawdown followed by a strong recent recovery — leaving the 12-month return barely negative despite powerful recent momentum.
The +30% three-month and +32% six-month returns show renewed momentum is building again after the mid-2026 pullback, and continued US commercial growth gives the recovery a fundamental underpinning rather than pure sentiment.
At roughly 91x forward earnings, Palantir remains one of the richest valuations in the group, and the swing from a deep drawdown to a sharp rally in the same year illustrates how volatile and sentiment-driven the stock can be — a repeat reversal is a real risk for anyone chasing the recent bounce.
Axon sells Tasers and body cameras to law enforcement agencies, bundled with its Evidence.com cloud platform that uses AI to help process and manage evidence. Like Palantir, the stock fell hard earlier in 2026 before staging a sharp recent recovery.
The +58% three-month and +43% six-month returns are among the strongest short-term momentum readings in this group, and Axon's incumbent position with most major US police departments supports the recovery with real recurring SaaS revenue growth.
The still-negative 12-month return is a reminder that Axon's momentum has been genuinely volatile in 2026, not a smooth uptrend. At roughly 68x forward earnings, the stock needs the recent growth reacceleration to hold for the rally to be justified rather than a short-covering bounce.
Constellation Energy is the largest nuclear power operator in the US and a direct beneficiary of hyperscalers signing long-term power purchase agreements to secure reliable, carbon-free electricity for AI data centers — most visibly its deal to restart a Three Mile Island reactor to supply Microsoft. The stock has given back a significant portion of its prior gains over the past year.
Nuclear power purchase agreements with hyperscalers lock in revenue for decades, and Constellation's existing fleet gives it a scarce, hard-to-replicate asset base. The pullback has also reset the forward P/E to a more reasonable ~23x from the mid-30s.
A negative 12-month return shows the market has grown more skeptical that new hyperscaler PPAs will keep getting signed on similarly favorable terms, and nuclear restart/uprate projects still carry real execution and regulatory risk. This pick no longer meets a strict definition of 'momentum' and is included mainly for context on how quickly the AI-power trade has cooled.
Meta's core advertising business on Facebook and Instagram continues to be supported by AI-driven ad targeting, but the stock has fallen across every trailing period examined here as investors grew concerned about the payback timeline on Meta's sharply rising AI infrastructure capex.
The pullback has reset Meta's forward P/E to roughly 18x — the cheapest multiple in this group — while the core advertising business remains highly profitable and AI-driven ad efficiency gains continue to show up in advertiser ROI metrics.
Meta no longer qualifies as a momentum stock on any of the three trailing windows measured here; it is included in this list only because it appeared in the original screen and its reversal is instructive. Continued AI capex without a clear return, plus persistent regulatory scrutiny (EU digital markets rules, antitrust), remain the key overhangs.
SpaceX completed its long-awaited IPO on June 12, 2026 at $135/share, giving public-market investors direct access to both its reusable-rocket launch business and Starlink, its satellite internet service. The stock has been extremely volatile in its first two months of trading, peaking near $225 in mid-June before falling to an all-time low of $104.83 in early August and recovering to roughly $140.
Starlink's recurring subscription revenue continues to grow rapidly and provides a more predictable, higher-margin complement to the lumpier launch-services business. SpaceX's reusable-rocket cost advantage over legacy launch providers remains largely unmatched.
As a newly public company with barely two months of trading history, SPCX's return figures are extremely noisy and likely to keep swinging sharply. Post-IPO lockup expirations later in 2026 and 2027 could introduce meaningful share supply and further volatility.
If you prefer systematic momentum exposure rather than individual stock-picking, MTUM (iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF) is the primary vehicle.
MTUM selects stocks with the highest risk-adjusted price return over 6 and 12 months, weighted by their momentum score. As of its August 2026 rebalance, top holdings include Micron, AMD, Broadcom, Intel, and ExxonMobil — GE Vernova is the only stock from this page's original picks still in the top 10 (#10, ~3.1% weight); NVDA, META, and CEG have all rotated out of the top 25 as their momentum faded. The biannual rebalance means it captures multi-month trends rather than short-term noise. Best used as a complement to core index holdings.
Momentum is one of the most powerful factors in investing — but also one of the most psychologically difficult to execute consistently because of crash risk and the temptation to sell at exactly the wrong moment. Here's the practical framework:
Get AI prediction signals, unlimited stock comparisons, portfolio analytics, and personalized watchlists — free for 14 days, no credit card required.
14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime
Not ready to sign up? Get one free email a week instead.