Very few stocks made the “100% club” in the third quarter — meaning they saw shares more than double in the span of just three months. Tuesday marked the final session of the third quarter, which saw the S & P 500 gain nearly 8%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jump more than 11% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rise more than 5% since the end of June. U.S. stocks recorded an unusually solid September, during which the S & P 500 gained more than 3% in a month that has averaged a 4.2% drop over the last five years. As the bull market has roared onwards — powering through ongoing concerns tied to high market concentration and valuation levels, artificial intelligence fervor and macroeconomic health — a handful of names managed to deliver sky-high returns. Among them were a number of tech stocks, including some AI beneficiaries, that have flown under the radar until now, including Astera Labs , Sandisk , Terawulf and Rigetti Computing . To be sure, some of these stocks have LSEG consensus price targets that indicate downside could be ahead. Take a look at several of the names below: Astera Labs made the exclusive club with a nearly 124% gain in the third quarter. Analysts’ consensus price target on the stock suggests a roughly 3% potential loss for the stock, which is up more than 45% for the year. The company is a major beneficiary of the AI trade, as it makes semiconductor-based connectivity systems for cloud and AI infrastructure. One analyst at Evercore ISI grew particularly bullish on Astera after the company’s blowout second-quarter results. Analyst Mark Lipacis reiterated his outperform rating on the company in early August, calling the stock an “AI pure play in [an] accelerating capex market” and setting a price target of $215 per share. Astera closed Tuesday at $195.80. Rigetti Computing, a quantum computing name, popped more than 150% during the most recent quarter. The high-flying stock has often see the volatile trading that comes from being in an early-stage field in technology. Investors remain bullish on the potential payoff of quantum computing industry. Bank of America recently forecasted the quantum computing market will be worth about $4 billion by 2030, up from an estimated $300 million in 2024. Rigetti is among a handful of “pure-play” quantum stocks alongside peers IonQ and D-Wave Quantum . RGTI 1Y mountain Rigetti Computing stock performance over the past year. Data storage device manufacturer SanDisk was another top performer in the third quarter, with a gain of almost 154% as of Tuesday’s market open. Shares popped another 9% after the company announced Tuesday it is beginning production at a semiconductor plant in Japan to meet greater demand.
