These are the best-performing stocks since the bank crisis began, and the sector that's leading

Published Wed, Mar 22 202312:09 PM EDT

Despite the blow that Silicon Valley Bank's failure dealt to investor sentiment, the S & P 500 is higher up in the weeks since the crisis unfolded — and the tech trade is overwhelmingly leading that charge. Yields took a nosedive from multi-year highs in recent weeks as investors searched for safe assets to hide in and wait out the volatility. As yields sank, investors rotated back into technology stocks, which had been hid hard the past year by rising yields and higher interest rates that hurt valuations. Megacap stocks are particularly outperforming given their solid balance sheets, cash flows and earnings outlook. Amid this backdrop, CNBC Pro screened for the best-performing stocks in the S & P 500 since the crisis kicked off. These are some of the stocks outperforming: Chip stocks have been some of the biggest winners since the crisis began, with Advanced Micro Devices up 12.4%, the third best-performing stock. Another standout chip stock is Nvidia , up a little over 8% in the wake of the crisis. Investors have flocked to the semiconductor stock in recent weeks as demand for hardware necessary for artificial intelligence (AI) ramps up in the wake of ChatGPT's debut. Wall Street is bullish on Nvidia, viewing the company as an AI leader , especially after it unveiled a host of new protects and partnerships at its GTC event Tuesday. Bank of America's Vivek Arya said Nvidia's dominance in generative AI and large language models could "reshape the existing tech industry." NVDA YTD mountain Nvidia shares so far this year After a 50% drop in 2022, Nvidia has surged more than 79% since the start of the year, with the consensus price target calling for an additional 4% upside. Other key players at the center of the AI chatbot war also made the list. That included Bard chatbot creator Alphabet and OpenAI backer Microsoft , up about 11% and 8% this month, respectively. Alphabet said this week it would open Bard for public testing to a limited number of users. Shares in the Google and YouTube parent were hit earlier this year after its chatbot blundered during a promotional video and investors questioned whether Microsoft would beat it in the AI war . In a company memo Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai warned that "things will go wrong," citing the need for feedback. Meta Platforms , Tesla , Adobe and Amazon are also among the top performers since the banking crisis kicked off.