Stocks have continued to grind higher in 2026, and the broader market’s “fear gauge” once again looks relatively calm. The VIX is back below 20 after eclipsing that level for all of March (and the beginning of April) as high-flying stocks sold off on the Iran war, with the most selling pressure in technology, semiconductors and AI-related names.
But a lull is a good time to look at your portfolio and identify volatile stocks in the event that the market gets choppier down the road.
That’s not to say you can’t own volatile stocks, but keep in mind that stocks that are volatile in periods of market calm will likely be even more volatile in stormy seas.
To screen for the most volatile stocks today, I looked for large-cap stocks with a beta of at least 2—meaning they’re twice as volatile as the general market. And I stuck with U.S. companies since, as with small-cap stocks, volatility and unpredictability are more common in international and emerging market stocks.
My screen produced a total of 52 stocks with betas above 2, 17 of which had betas north of 3 (meaning they’re three times more volatile than the S&P 500).
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most volatile stocks on the list had betas above 4, with the top stock boasting an astronomical beta of 7.
So with that in mind, here are three of the most volatile stocks today, ranked from least to most volatile.
The 3 Most Volatile Stocks Today
Volatile Stock #3: Hut 8 (HUT)
Hut 8 has become one of the market’s more volatile infrastructure and digital-asset-adjacent plays. The company has shifted from being viewed primarily as a Bitcoin-mining story toward a broader energy and AI data center infrastructure platform, but that transition has done little to settle traders’ nerves.
The bull case is that Hut 8 is building a more durable business around power, digital infrastructure and AI demand. In June, the company closed $4.25 billion of investment-grade senior secured notes for its Beacon Point data center project, bringing cumulative project-level investment-grade data center construction financing to $7.5 billion.
But that same transformation is also why the stock can swing so violently. HUT is tied to several volatile themes at once: AI infrastructure, power, data center demand, interest rates and crypto-related sentiment. That makes it a potentially compelling momentum name—but a tough fit for conservative investors looking for portfolio stability.
To wit, shares have risen more than 300% in the last year, even after they’ve given back half of their year-to-date gains in a single month.
Volatile Stock #2: Sandisk (SNDK)
Sandisk has been one of the standout winners of the AI hardware and memory boom. It has also become one of the market’s wildest large-cap stocks.
SNDK’s beta of 4.94 is a testament to that.
The stock’s upside has been extraordinary. Sandisk has been among the biggest AI-related winners in the S&P 500, with shares skyrocketing an astronomical three thousand percent in the last year alone.
But huge winners often become vulnerable to profit-taking, and that has already started to show up. Recent selling in memory and chip stocks hit Sandisk hard, with shares getting hit with multiple single-day losses of 10% or more in the month of June alone.
For traders, that kind of volatility can create opportunity. For long-term investors looking for steadier holdings, it can create a lot of stress.
Volatile Stock #1: CoreWeave (CRWV)
CoreWeave is, as you may have expected, yet another AI infrastructure name.
CRWV’s beta of 7.25 puts it at the top of this list and makes it seven times more volatile than the S&P 500.
But unlike the other two names on this list, the volatility has almost exclusively been in the wrong direction, as shares are down more than 40% in the last year.
Even so, the stock has doubled since its IPO in March of last year, and the potential attraction is clear: CoreWeave sits directly in the AI infrastructure buildout, renting high-performance GPU capacity to companies that need massive compute power. The concern is that expectations are extremely high, and any perceived threat to future AI infrastructure demand can punish the stock quickly.
Bottom Line on the Most Volatile Stocks Today
With momentum-driven stocks, there’s no telling when the music may stop, and if the AI-fueled bull market continues onward, it’s possible (or even probable) that stocks like SNDK and HUT will be trading even higher.
But if you’re a longer-term investor looking for stability, these volatile stocks are probably best avoided.
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*This post has been updated from a previously published version.
