This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
We're just a few weeks into 2025, but some stocks are already off to the races. There are already nine U.S. exchange-listed stocks with market caps north of $1 billion that have doubled this year. Lower the floor to a market cap of $200 million, and 19 publicly traded companies make the cut.
Three of the largest stocks to double this year are FuboTV (NYSE: FUBO), WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD), and Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS). Let's take a closer look at why these three companies are taking off in 2025.
1. FuboTV: Up 222%
One stock that has not only doubled -- but actually tripled -- in 2025 is FuboTV. The live TV streaming service was the market's hottest stock in the first full week of trading after landing a big cheese as an investor. Disney (NYSE: DIS) struck a deal to become a 70% stakeholder in Fubo, contributing its larger Hulu + Live TV platform to the business in the process.
At first, it seemed like a shotgun wedding. Disney was working with two other media giants to launch Venu Sports, a streaming service that would combine the live sports programming of all three companies into a single subscription that would set viewers back $43 a month. Venu was hoping to roll out last year, but Fubo -- with its own sports-centric platform -- was able to secure an injunction to at least temporarily block the launch last summer.
Disney and Fubo banding together with their live TV streaming services came with a catch: Fubo would drop its case against Venu, receiving a $220 million cash settlement in the process. It seemed to be a pretty clear case of rewarding the squeaky wheel, but then the story took an even more interesting twist.
Just a week after Disney and Fubo announced their new partnership, Venu Sports fumbled the bundle. The three media giants behind the $43-a-month streaming service decided to go their separate ways. The Fubo pairing with Disney continues to roll on intact.
Fubo had been meandering as a growing but profitless platform operator, but its operations were improving. It was hoping to turn cash flow positive in 2025. It would just take a long time to become a meaningful player with just 1.6 million premium accounts -- less than 10% of the overall market -- for its live TV streaming service.
The new Fubo will reach a combined 6.2 million homes with Hulu + Live TV's 4.6 million subscribers. There is scalability here, and now Fubo has Disney's audience reach and marketing muscle on its side.
2. WeRide: Up 122%
It took just a single day -- and a notable investor -- for WeRide to nearly double. Shares of the Chinese company specialising in autonomous driving products and services soared 81% on Friday after Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) became a minority investor. WeRide was already beating the market in 2025, but now it has more than doubled.
Having the poster child of artificial intelligence (AI) that also happens to be the second-most valuable company by market cap in your corner is obviously a good thing. It also helps that WeRide was a somewhat obscure and lightly traded company that just went public at $15.50 back in October.
Two cautionary notes are warranted here, especially with the shares kicking off this holiday-abridged trading week by opening sharply higher on Tuesday as well. Nvidia's disclosure late last week that it made an investment in WeRide during the fourth quarter is a very small position. Its stake was worth just $25 million at the start of this year. WeRide's market cap jumped roughly $4 billion on Friday following the news.
The second takeaway is that WeRide's revenue declined in 2023 as well through the first three quarters of 2024. It's a leader in an emerging industry, but investors are making big bets following a small bet by Nvidia on a company with a lot to prove.
3. Hims & Hers Health: Up 150%
Hims & Hers -- a telehealth specialist offering convenient and often discounted ways to score everything from birth control to weight loss injections -- soared 172% in 2024. When I singled it out as one of three stocks that can double again in 2025 at the end of last year, I didn't think it would happen in less than two months. Well, it happened.
The telehealth platform initially launched as an online platform for men to discreetly secure hair loss and erectile dysfunction drugs. Hims & Hers has been an impressive growth stock in its first few years of public trading, posting year-over-year growth of at least 45% in every quarter that it's been on the market.
Hims & Hers saw revenue accelerate from 46% in the first quarter of last year to 52% and then 72% in subsequent reports. It won't announce its fourth-quarter results until next week, but analysts see revenue soaring 90% this time around.
The surge in popularity of weekly injectable GLP-1 treatments for weight loss has kicked things up a notch. Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound have patents protecting their GLP-1 treatments dedicated to weight loss, but an FDA loophole allows for companies like Hims & Hers and other compounders to make reformulated copies of the treatments during production shortages. With demand outpacing supply and a new administration perceived to be as kind to compounders, Hims & Hers is taking off again this year. And Hims & Hers putting out a Super Bowl ad earlier this month calling out the greed of the pricey Big Pharma offerings is adding fuel to that momentum fire.
This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
