Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR.) shares have been one of the best investments on the UK stock market in recent years. Anyone buying in five years ago will have seen their money grow by over 800%, even more when dividends are included.

But no stock goes up in a straight line. Indeed, this market darling’s down 15% in the last month, leaving its year-to-date gain at 6%. For perspective, the FTSE 100 index is up 8% in 2026.

Other far more mundane stocks have fared even better.

Is this a crisis for Rolls-Royce shares?

Regardless of its recent form, Rolls-Royce is in a materially better place than where it stood back when CEO Tufan Erginbilgiç took over. By cutting costs and generating more cash, the balance sheet now looks far more robust.

The company has clearly benefitted from global developments too. The two ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, for example, have pushed governments to up their defence spending.

As many Magpies have pointed out however, Rolls-Royce shares have long been highly valued on traditional metrics. When only good news is expected, any disappointment is usually punished.

This seems to be playing out here. One potential catalyst has been the galloping oil price. This has led airlines to cut flights — not ideal for the engineer, given that it makes a lot of its money from maintaining jets.

So yes, the share price slippage makes sense. What’s arguably more surprising is which stocks are doing (far) better.

Turnaround titan

Cycle and car parts retailer Halfords Group‘s (LSE: HFD) shares are up 85% so far this year. This is partly down to a successful turnaround strategy of growing its services arm along with branching into new markets such as e-bikes.

The extended period of hot weather over the summer has helped too. This put a rocket under sales of bikes and outdoor equipment. Business has been so good that the company announced in August that annual profit for the full year would now come in ahead of previous market expectations.

In spite of this momentum, Halfords shares still trade at only 13 times forecast earnings. That’s roughly around the long-term average among FTSE stocks and less than half what Rolls-Royce still trades at.

A word of caution

Obviously, there are no guarantee this stock will continue charging upwards. As one might expect, Halfords still faces a lot of competition for customers. Existing holders may also think that rising inflation will impact levels of discretionary spending and decide to take some profit off the table.

It’s these concerns that leave me pondering whether I actually want to buy its shares now. But I salute those brave enough to buy at the start of the year.

Whether we’ve seen the top for Rolls-Royce shares for a while is impossible to say with any certainty but I’m thinking about getting involved if this weakness persists. Taking into account its multiple existing divisions (civil aerospace, defence, power systems), the long-term outlook for the company still appears very positive.

Nevertheless, Halfords shows us that having a diversified portfolio can help to pick up the slack when even top growth stocks pull back.

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Paul Summers has no position in any of the shares mentioned.