10 Best-Performing S&P 500 Stocks of 2012

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The top 10 performers on the benchmark S&P 500 so far this year include some of the worst stocks of 2011.

Sears(SHLD) , Bank of America(BAC) and Netflix(NFLX) are among those with the biggest increases in 2012, in contrast to last year, when they plunged between 55% and 61%.

The benchmark is up 12%, driven by an improvement in the U.S. economy and increased efforts to solve Europe's debt crisis. In addition, the potential for new monetary stimulus is still on the table based on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech last week.

With such a solid run in the first quarter of 2012, which came after a 11.4% increase in the S&P 500 in the last quarter of 2011, many investors are nervous that a pullback is in the cards. Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, says the opposite is more likely.

"Since 1945, in the eight times the S&P 500 was up 10% or more in Q1, it gained another 3.3%, on average, in Q2," he says.