Tech leads first half stock gains — but the biggest winners weren't in the U.S.

The tech sector emerged as a clear winner in the first half of 2026. But while U.S. Big Tech stocks enjoyed strong gains — despite a sharp sell-off at the end of June — they were largely outperformed by their international counterparts.  

Of MSCI's sector-specific indexes, the index covering large and mid-cap emerging markets technology stocks was the best performer in the first six months of the year, with a gain of more than 90%.

Its European counterpart added 44.8%, while the U.S. version gained 19.4%.

The trend was also visible across other parts of the market. The pan-European Stoxx 600 Technology index jumped 23.4% between January and June, compared with the S&P 500 Information Technology index's 19.4% increase.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index — which counts Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet among its constituents — added 19.9% in the six months to June.

Comparatively, the S&P 500 gained 9.55% in the first half of the year, the Nasdaq Composite added 12.79%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 8.85%. All three of Wall Street's major averages were outperformed by various major indexes located elsewhere in the world.

Emerging markets continued their broad outperformance, with the MSCI Emerging Markets index gaining 24% in the first half. South Korea's Kospi surged 101.1%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 gained around 39%.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 gained more than 8%, with London's FTSE 100 adding 5.7% in the first half, while Germany's DAX gained about 1.9% and France's CAC 40 rose by just over 3%.

Southern European indexes were standouts in the region, with Spain's IBEX 35 jumping 12.5%, Portugal's PSI index adding 10.5% and Italy's FTSE MIB gaining 14.7%.

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