July is stomping all over AI’s biggest winners

The party got a little too loud

The first half of 2026 made a lot of AI-adjacent stocks look invincible. Then July showed up with a bucket of ice water.

According to Bespoke Investment Group, the 25 best-performing Russell 1000 stocks in the first half of the year — each up at least 150% — have already lost about a quarter of their value in less than three weeks. That’s not a dip. That’s a faceplant.

SanDisk went from rocket ship to roller coaster

SanDisk (SNDK) was the poster child for the frenzy, ripping as much as 858% earlier this year on AI-driven demand for memory and storage. But momentum is a fickle friend, and the stock is down 37% in July alone.

Intel (INTC) is another reminder that a great narrative can get ahead of itself. The stock had surged on hopes around its turnaround story and a splashy White House meeting, but it’s given back 28% this month. Not exactly the victory lap investors were hoping for.

Same song, different ticker

The pullback is hitting a whole parade of AI infrastructure names:

• Micron (MU): down 22.8% in July
• Western Digital (WDC): down 21.4%
• Seagate (STX): down 10.98%
• Dell (DELL): down 8.2%
• Marvell (MRVL): down 34.3%
• Corning (GLW): down 37.7%
• Applied Materials (AMAT): down 24%
• Bloom Energy (BE): down 31.1%

In other words, the trade that spent months acting like gravity didn’t exist is finally remembering that valuation still matters.

Big picture

This doesn’t automatically mean the AI story is over. But when a crowded trade gets this hot, the unwind can be brutal — and fast. If you chased the first-half winners, July is a good reminder that even the market’s favorite kids can get grounded.