Stocks Close Out Stellar Quarter on High Note; A Look at Top Performers

Friday is the last trading session of what has turned out to be an excellent quarter for the U.S. stock market. Nearing the close of trading, the Dow and S&P had logged moderate gains while the Nasdaq composite was down slightly. The Dow had gained 63 points and was trading at 13,209 while the S&P was up a little less than 6 points to 1,409. Due in part to a 1.53% loss in Apple AAPL shares, the Nasdaq was last trading down less than a point at 3,095. For the quarter, the Dow has added better than 8% while the S&P was up 12%. The Nasdaq has outpaced both the Dow and S&P with a gain of nearly 19% for the quarter. A wide variety of stocks have contributed to the gains, which are the best since the third quarter of 2009. In particular, financial stocks have rallied sharply in the wake of easing concerns over the European debt crisis. Two of the best performing financials have been Bank of America BAC, which has rallied nearly 72% and was last trading at $9.55, and Regions Financial RF which has added 52% to $6.54 since January 1. Technology has also been a very strong performer over the last 3 months, led by stocks such as Alcatel-Lucent ALU, Advanced Micro Devices AMD, Level 3 Communications LVLT, Skyworks Solutions SWKS, Salesforce.com CRM, LinkedIn LNKD, and Seagate Technology STX. In addition, Apple has been one of the best performers year-to-date, with a gain of more than 48% to $600. Other notable names that have been surging in 2012, include retailer Lululemon LULU, which has added more than 60%, priceline.com PCLN, which is up almost 54% to $719.58, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals REGN, which have surged nearly 111% since the beginning of the year. More top performers for the first quarter are listed below. Amylin Pharmaceuticals AMLN +119% Equinix EQIX +55.67% Fossil, Inc. FOSL +67% Michael Kors KORS +71% Lions Gate Entertainment LGF +67.43% Medivation MDVN +63% Sears Holdings SHLD +108.87% Netflix NFLX +66% NXP Semiconductors NXPI +73.65% Terex TEX +66.4% Textron TXT +51% VIVUS, Inc. VVUS +129% Whirlpool WHR +61.77%