Doubling your money in 12 months is an extraordinary return.
What should you do next?’
Selling locks in the gains, but holding allows for further upside if the business continues to grow.
Past performance alone cannot tell investors what comes next.
Investors should evaluate whether the business has become significantly more valuable, whether earnings can continue growing strongly, and how much future growth may already be reflected in the current price.
We take a closer look at three US-listed stocks that have doubled, at a minimum, over the past year.
| Stock | Stock Ticker | Performance (1-Year) |
| Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) | NASDAQ: AMD | +280% (YoY to 25 September 2026) |
| Moderna, Inc. | NASDAQ: MRNA | +177% (Single-day gain in August 2026 post-trial) |
| CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. | NASDAQ: CRWD | +106% (YoY to 25 September 2026) |
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) – The AI Growth Winner
AMD’s stock price has increased by 3.8 times higher than a year ago (as of 25 September 2026), driven by AI-led demand for high-performance chips.
Its revenue in the first half of 2026 (1H2026) increased by 44% year on year (YoY) to US$21.8 billion, while net income was 2.3x higher at US$3.7 billion over the same period.
The company is highly cash generative, with cash flow from operating activities in 1H2026 up by 80% to US$5.3 billion compared to a year ago.
Expected demand for AMD’s chips has evolved with the developing AI narrative.
Initially, AI-related demand was focused on training large language models, which required lots of GPUs, an area where NVIDIA is the unquestioned leader.
However, agentic AI is becoming a more important part of the AI story, which has led to greater demand for CPUs that have traditionally been AMD’s strong suit.
In fact, the shift to agentic AI could lead to a 10x increase in demand for CPUs.
If demand for agentic AI continues to rise, this should translate into higher earnings and cash flow for AMD, which would justify holding on to the stock.
The company has introduced new products, including GPUs, CPUs and networking solutions for data centres, and has struck partnerships with Anthropic and Microsoft.
Of course, the bursting of an AI bubble is a key risk.
The company is also competing with NVIDIA, which is not resting on its laurels.
Recently, NVIDIA took the fight directly to AMD by launching the Vera CPU.
AMD has become more expensive over the past year, with its forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio rising from 27.3 in September 2025 to 39.5.
Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) – The Business Transformation Story
Moderna was one of the winners of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its mRNA vaccines playing a key role in controlling the virus.
However, its shares later tumbled as demand for the vaccines fell and a follow-up blockbuster product failed to emerge.
From its peak in September 2021, the company’s stock price had fallen nearly 95% by November 2025.
However, this past August, Moderna announced that its personalised cancer vaccine for melanoma, which it had been developing in partnership with Merck, showed initial positive results in a late-stage trial.
This was enough to send the company’s stock up by 177% in one day.
Given the relatively early stage of this breakthrough, Moderna’s financials do not yet reflect this potential.
The company expects 2026 revenue to be just 10% higher than 2025, while its bottom line is in the red.
The jump in its share price, without a corresponding increase in revenue, has resulted in the company’s valuation going through the roof – from a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 3.3 in September 2025 to 32.4 currently.
The bull case here is that Moderna is able to successfully commercialise this vaccine, while also extending it to other forms of cancer.
If it succeeds, the TAM for its products would be significant.
However, drug trials are notoriously hard to predict, and initial success may not translate into a successful commercial outcome, which is still likely many years away.
The company also faces competition from other players such as BioNTech.
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) – The Secular Growth Compounder
CrowdStrike is riding a long-term trend of increasing demand for cyber-security protection, which has been accelerated recently due to the need to protect company data from bad actors armed with AI.
This has sent CrowdStrike’s stock price up by 106% over the past year to 25 September 2026.
In 2021, the company had US$874 million in revenue and a net loss of US$93 million.
By 2025, the top line had expanded to US$4 billion, a CAGR of 45.8%, although the company still suffered a net loss of US$17 million.
Meanwhile, its cash from operating activities was US$1.4 billion in 2025.
Management expects the company’s TAM to reach US$325 billion by 2030, driven by demand for AI-powered agentic cybersecurity.
CrowdStrike’s competitive advantage lies in the trillions of cybersecurity events per week that are consolidated on its Falcon platform.
This data makes the platform smarter over time, benefiting customers and creating a network effect.
Such growth does not come cheap.
At the end of April this year, its P/S ratio was 23.2, and has since expanded to 49.8.
There are two key catalysts for future growth.
The company is expected to continue growing its international business, which accounted for just 32% of total revenue in its fiscal year 2025.
Another source of growth is higher customer adoption.
CrowdStrike aims to move from offering customers a single product to multiple integrated cloud modules.
The bear case for CrowdStrike includes slowing growth as it becomes a larger company, and its products failing to guard against a future cyberattack, damaging its reputation.
Get Smart: A 100% Gain Is Not the Finish Line
A 100% gain is not a sign to sell a stock.
Indeed, selling simply because a stock has doubled is a sure-fire way to miss out on the benefits of long-term compounding.
For existing shareholders, the key question is whether the original investment thesis remains intact.
For new investors, the focus should be on future returns from today’s price rather than the gains someone else has already made.
A stock that has doubled can still have room to grow, while a stock that looks unstoppable can also disappoint.
The fundamentals and valuation ultimately matter more than the headline return.
A market dip can either hurt your returns… or accelerate them.
The difference comes down to one thing: how you deploy your cash. We break it down step by step in this FREE report. Get your copy for free now.
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Disclosure: Silas H. does not own any of the stocks mentioned.
