17 big stocks lead the charge back

Investors seem to finally had their fill of selling - and stocks are running sharply higher Friday. The stocks leading the charge are very telling.

There are 17 stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500, including energy pipeline firm Kinder Morgan (KMI) and energy companies ONEOK (OKE) and Range Resources (RRC), that are up 10% or more from the market's Jan. 20, 2016 52-week low, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ. That's an impressive gain - in just two days.

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Watching bounce backs from extreme selling situations can be telling for investors. The Standard & Poor's 500 is still down 6.8% this year - but it got a bump Friday that's pushed it up 2.4% from its low on Jan. 20. The S&P 500 closed up 2% Friday alone.

The stocks that lead out of the bottoms give you an idea of where investors who are waiting for good values on stocks are concentrated. There's no question where investors are seeing the biggest possible discounts: energy. All but three of the best performing S&P 500 stocks from the market bottom are in the energy sector. That's understandable since the price of oil jumped 8.4% to over $32 a barrel again, Friday.

Kinder Morgan's near-term bounce has been impressive. Shares of the Houston-based company have soared more than 27% in just two days - from the market's low. The rally has been powerful enough to push the stock back into the black for the year - up 2.6%.

ONEOK investors brave enough to jump into the shares a few days ago are also laughing all the way to the bank for now. In addition to the energy transportation stock being up 25% from the market's low, investors are collecting a 10.9% dividend. Not bad.

The rally's biggest winners are energy plays, but there are some tech stocks enjoying the bounce, too. Computer chipmakers Xilinx (XLNX) and Qorvo (QRVO) are up 10.3% and 10.5%, respectively, from the market low. Corporate technology provider Hewett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is up 10.6% from the low

It's unclear if this rally is fleeting - or if the start of a repair of the damage to the market. But investors who picked the right horses are getting a heck of a ride higher.

BEST PERFORMING S&P 500 STOCKS FROM MARKET's 1/20 LOW

Company, ticker, % from market low

Kinder Morgan, KMI, 27.4%

Williams, WMB, 26.9%

ONEOK, OKE, 24.8%

CONSOL Energy, CNX, 21.2%

Range Resources, RRC, 19.7%

Devon Energy, DVN, 17.9%

Southwestern Energy, SWN, 17.1%

Anadarko Petroleum, APC, 15.7%

Spectra Energy, SE, 13.6%

Cabot Oil & Gas, COG, 13.2%

Apache, APA, 12.4%

Noble Energy, NBL, 12.3%

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE, 10.6%

Qorvo, QRVO, 10.5%

Marathon Oil, MRO, 14.5%

Xilinx, XLNX, 10.2%

Source: S&P Capital IQ, USA TODAY

Matt Krantz on Twitter: @mattkrantz.