The U.S. stock market is trading higher through the first eight months of 2025, but not every stock is down with the upticks. Thousands of stocks are trading lower. A handful are trading substantially lower. There are 19 stocks trading on U.S. exchanges with market caps north of $1 billion that have been cut in half this year.
You don’t plummet in an otherwise buoyant market unless you have problems, but sometimes the pessimism is too thick. I see better days ahead for C3.ai (NYSE: AI), The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD), Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT), Six Flags Entertainment (NYSE: FUN), and Sweetgreen (NYSE: SG). Let’s take a closer look at these five hard-hit stocks that I think can turn positive in September.
1. C3.ai: Down 51%
It’s been a great year for artificial intelligence (AI), but not for the quick-fingered company that swiped the revolution’s ticker symbol. C3.ai provides AI software solutions for enterprises. Its early success in the energy industry should’ve paved the way for success in other markets, but it’s been running on fumes.
Net losses have widened for four consecutive years. After back-to-back years of accelerating revenue growth, its preliminary results for the fiscal first quarter that it will report on Wednesday were devastating.
C3.ai is expected to deliver US$70.2 million to US$70.4 million in revenue for the July fiscal quarter. It’s a shocking year-over-year decline. The bottom line is also clocking in with more red ink than the market was expecting. There’s also a search going on for a new CEO as it shuffles its leadership team. No one said investing in C3.ai would be easy.
None of this sounds like a conventional turnaround story, but it could be the sign of a bottom. Everyone is already bracing for this week’s poor financial results. Its earnings call could be a springboard to pitch the benefits of recent organizational changes. Momentum is missing, but you don’t have to check off all the boxes when you would have to more than double to get back to where you were at the start of the year.
2. The Trade Desk: Down 53%
The biggest surprise on this list has to be The Trade Desk. The adtech leader was a common holding in growth portfolios, disrupting the sleepy advertising industry with market share-grabbing disruption through its programmatic model.
The Trade Desk seemed to have “beat and raise” as a quarterly default setting, but it has proven mortal this year. It stunned investors earlier this year when it fell short of its earlier guidance for the first time as a public company. Things only got worse this summer when it reports slowing growth in its latest quarter and an even gloomier outlook for the current period.
Shares plummeted 39% in a single day on the challenging update, its worst decline in nine years of trading. Forget the 19% year-over-year increase in revenue, the first time that it has failed to break 20% growth in five years. The Trade Desk now sees 14% top-line growth in the third quarter, and analysts see it slowing even more in the fourth quarter. Guidance for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) calls for an 8% increase in the current quarter, so margin contraction is a problem.
It’s hard to bet against The Trade Desk. Even with a potentially bumpy economy tripping up marketing budgets, it’s still grabbing market share. You can now buy into a disruptive leader for just 26 times next year’s earnings.
Don’t get Mad Men. Get even.
3. Freshpet: Down 62%
There’s no denying that pet food stocks have gone to the dogs lately. The hard part is trying to figure out why the industry is slumping.
This should be a great time for the companies providing sustenance for the dogs and cats that were adopted early in the pandemic. Puppies and kittens are even bigger — and hungrier — and that should be a dinner bell for Freshpet. The provider of fresh pet food is uniquely positioned, with its branded refrigerators found at many mass-market retailers and grocery stores.
Freshpet is still posting double-digit sales growth. After back-to-back misses on the bottom line, Freshpet earned twice what analysts were targeting in its latest quarter. The stock’s stiff valuation was a concern heading into this year, but look both ways here, and you’ll find something interesting. Freshpet is trading for a steep 85 times trailing earnings, but a multiple of just 28 on a forward basis.
4. Six Flags: Down 53%
When Six Flags and Cedar Fair officially came together last summer, it was supposed to be the best of both worlds. The combined company would be able to lean on Cedar Fair’s operational excellence on the back of Six Flags’ strengths of nimble execution and strong intellectual properties.
It somehow fumbled the funnel cake. The leading regional amusement park operator is struggling to resonate with its biggest fans. Paring back its operations and moving on from some of its parks were never part of the synergy playbook.
Wall Street’s bracing for a lost summer. They see marginal declines on both ends of the income statement for the telltale third quarter that ends later this month. As a seasonal business, investors will have to wait for next summer to bail the company out. However, a return to both reported profitability and revenue growth in 2026 is the market consensus.
5. Sweetgreen: Down 72%
Earnings season wasn’t kind for many restaurant operators, particularly the high-flying fast-casual concepts. Sweetgreen operates a chain of restaurants spinning premium salads with heavy customization options.
The bullish thesis for Sweetgreen heading into this year was that companies calling employees back in to in-office work would spur a spike in lunch orders. It’s a strong suit for Sweetgreen, but that hasn’t been on the menu this year.
Comps have turned negative. Same-store sales declining 7.6% on a 10% drop in traffic for the chain’s latest quarter is problematic. A price war percolating in the eatery space isn’t helping Sweetgreen’s turnaround prospects, but this is also the hardest hit of the five stocks in 2025.
It won’t take much to lift Sweetgreen out of the single digits again. The high-end salad maker already sees the early signs of improvement in the second half of this year. It’s encouraged by the rollout of a new loyalty program, and it claims that its strong summer menu was drumming up repeat business. Now it’s time for Sweetgreen to show investors the lettuce.
