‘Queen City’ Charlotte was the king of the stock market in 2025
North Carolina
Sean Pavone | Istock | Getty Images
Lithium and steel have eclipsed AI by 2025, at least when it comes to CNBC’s exclusive Power City Indexes.
Power City Indices (PCI) were created ten years ago. The ‘indices’ consist of 11 or 12 companies with the largest market caps in 36 different cities and metropolitan areas across America. Stocks are weighted equally in each index and tracked on FactSet throughout the year.
PCIs are an easy and exclusive way to find out which city or metropolitan area is “winning” the stock market. We feature them on CNBC throughout the year and also bring them to you on CNBC Pro.
These are mostly for entertainment purposes, but we take them seriously.
Here’s how to do this. We base the city location on the location of a company’s headquarters through a stock screener at S&P CapitalIQ. Even if a company has more employees in a different region, what matters to PCI is the location of the headquarters. We use the median return for all 11 or 12 stocks. And if a company is acquired, its stock remains in the index until it is delisted, and then it is replaced by the next largest company.
Now that the formalities are over, let’s have some fun and look at the average returns for each region.
In 2025, the stock market’s third-best metropolitan area was around our country’s capital.
DC’s solid year
Companies listed in Washington, D.C. (including those in the city itself and the surrounding Virginia and Maryland suburbs) had a solid year. Defense contractors were an aggressive play for investors. RTX (RTX), General Dynamics (GD), Northrop Grumman (NOC) And Boeing (BA)) they all explode.
It wasn’t that long ago that these companies were all represented in a different city’s index, but over the last decade they’ve all started to move closer to the Pentagon and the halls of power.
DC Metro Power City Index members
| to stock | ticker | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| RTX | RTX | 59% |
| Capital One | COF | 37% |
| General Dynamic | G.D. | 28% |
| Northrop Grumman | NOC | 22% |
| Boeing’s | licence | 23% |
| xylem | XYL | 18% |
| Hilton Worldwide | HLT | 17% |
| Marriott | MAR | 12% |
| Danaher | DHR | 0% |
| LockheedMartin | LMT | 0% |
| Bay of Avalon | AVB | -17% |
| Strategy | MSTR | -47% |
Source: Information Set
Silicon Valley ranks second
We rank second in our 2025 Power City Index ranking: Silicon Valley.
Given the hope and excitement around AI, perhaps the only real surprise here is that the metro area market hasn’t won it all. Still, it was a good year for investors in the US 101 corridor.
Silicon Valley Power City Index members
| to stock | ticker | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| AppLovin | APPLICATION | 112% |
| Alphabet | 66% | |
| Applied Materials | AMAT | 60% |
| broadcom | AVGO | 50% |
| Nvidia | NVDA | 41% |
| Cisco | CSCO | 31% |
| Meta | META | 13% |
| Intuitive Surgery | ISRG | 9% |
| Apple | AAPL | 9% |
| Eskimo | INTU | 6% |
| netflix | NFLX | 6% |
| SerivceNow | NOW | -28% |
Source: Information Set
Charlotte became the owner of the year
The big winner for 2025 goes to North Carolina’s Queen City of Charlotte.
Charlotte PCI rose more than 22%, beating big tech by just over half a percentage point. Charlotte didn’t have a single stock doubling, but seven major companies saw their shares rise more than 20%, pushing up the average return. Big gains in lithium miner Albemarle (ALB)aviation company Curtiss-Wright (CW), SPX Technology (SPXC), Nucor (NU) And Bank of America (BAC) It was the secret sauce to Charlotte’s success this year, leading the region to victory in 2025 (a nod to the area’s heavy NASCAR presence).
Charlotte Power City Index members
| to stock | ticker | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Albemarle | ALB | 64% |
| Curtiss-Wright | C.W. | 57% |
| nucor | NUE | 40% |
| Bank of America | BAC | 25% |
| Coca-Cola Consolidated | COKE | 23% |
| Sealed Air | TO SEE | 23% |
| Trustworthy | TFC | 14% |
| Duke Energy | DUKE | 9% |
| Lowe’s | LOW | -%2 |
| Honeywell’s | sweetie | -8% |
| Ingersoll Rand | IR | -12% |
Source: Information Set
So big congratulations to Charlotte on Power City Index winning the year in 2025 and a happy new year. We look forward to visiting soon. Maybe even for the Panthers’ playoff game.
While we’d rather stay positive, it’s worth noting that “Big D” means “incompetent” in 2025. The worst-performing Power City Index was Dallas, Texas, with a negative average return of 10%. A lot of good things are happening in Dallas, but the stock market wasn’t one of them this year.
We look forward to following the country and regional stock markets again next year. Who knows, maybe we’ll even go out and produce CNBC TV in whichever region we win the crown.
