S&P 500 Movers: Trade Desk Surges on CEO Buy, Palantir Rides Geopolitical Wave, CrowdStrike Earnings Impress
Quick Read
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The S&P 500 dropped nearly 2% last week, but some stocks were big winners. The Trade Desk (TTD) jumped 22.9% following CEO Jeff Green’s massive $148 million stock buy. That made the Trade Desk the number one performer in the entire S&P 500 index last week. Palantir (PLTR) and CrowdStrike (CRWD) also saw big jumps last week.
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CrowdStrike’s first GAAP profit and Palantir’s defense-tech positioning amid Middle East strikes drove the two stocks higher despite a general market sell-off.
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The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks. Get them here FREE.
The S&P 500 (SPY) fell nearly 2% on the week, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped about 1.2% and the Russell 2000 small-cap index tumbled over 4%.
The VIX fear gauge climbed to 29.49, and is now up 70% in the past month, reflecting genuine investor unease.
Geopolitical tension in the Middle East, tariff uncertainty, and a choppy macro backdrop kept broad indexes under pressure. Yet a handful of S&P 500 names surged double digits, driven by earnings catalysts, insider conviction, and defense-sector tailwinds.
READ: The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks
The 10 Best Performers in the S&P 500 Last Week
|
Stock |
Ticker |
Weekly Change |
|---|---|---|
|
The Trade Desk |
TTD |
+22.9% |
|
Intuit |
INTU |
+17.6% |
|
LyondellBasell Industries |
LYB |
+16.7% |
|
CF Industries |
CF |
+16.3% |
|
Expedia Group |
EXPE |
+15.7% |
|
AppLovin |
APP |
+15.5% |
|
CrowdStrike |
CRWD |
+15.3% |
|
ServiceNow |
NOW |
+15.1% |
|
Palantir Technologies |
PLTR |
+14.6% |
|
Workday |
WDAY |
+12.9% |
Let's dive into why The Trade Desk, CrowdStrike, and Palantir saw such strong gains in the past five days.
CrowdStrike Posts Its First-Ever GAAP Profit
CrowdStrike reported Q4 FY2026 earnings on March 3, and the headline that mattered most wasn't revenue growth -- it was the bottom line: CrowdStrike recorded its first-ever positive GAAP net income of $38.69 million, flipping from a $86.29 million loss in the same quarter a year ago.
Revenue grew 23% year-over-year to $1.305 billion, edging past estimates. Ending ARR hit $5.25 billion, up 24%, while net new ARR of $330.7 million surged 47% year-over-year, a record. Free cash flow margin came in at 29%.
CEO George Kurtz set the tone on the call:
"FY26 will go down in our history books as CrowdStrike's best year yet. As enterprises rapidly adopt AI, CrowdStrike is mission-critical infrastructure — securing AI across every layer from GPU to agent to prompt."
— George Kurtz, CEO, CrowdStrike
Morningstar raised its fair value estimate from $410 to $460, while Barclays maintained a Buy with a $550 price target. The stock jumped over 4% the day after earnings and finished the week up 15.3% on the week. A geopolitical tailwind helped too: 149 hacktivist DDoS attacks hit 110 organizations across 16 countries following Middle East conflict escalation, putting cybersecurity names in focus.
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