The Stocks Driving S&P 500 Returns in 2024

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June 28, 2024 Article/Editing: Graphics/Design:

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The Stocks Driving S&P 500 Returns in 2024

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The S&P 500 is sitting at near-record highs, returning 15% year-to-date as of June 26, 2024.

Today, a limited number of stocks are powering the stock market’s rally as investors pour money into companies that are advancing AI technologies. As share prices skyrocket, many wonder if company valuations are overheated—or if they are supported by strong corporate fundamentals.

This graphic shows the top 10 S&P 500 stocks driving stock market returns in 2024, based on data from Goldman Sachs.

Big Tech Stocks Are Fueling Gains

Below, we show the companies making the largest contribution to the S&P 500’s rally:

RankCompanyTickerContribution to S&P 500 Return
YTD as of June 13, 2024 1NvidiaNVDA4.94% 2MicrosoftMSFT1.24% 3AlphabetGOOGL0.97% 4MetaMETA0.84% 5AppleAAPL0.81% 6AmazonAMZN0.72% 7BroadcomAVGO0.62% 8Eli Lilly & Co.LLY0.60% 9Berkshire HathawayBRK.B0.22% 10QUALCOMMQCOM0.21% Total S&P 500 Return YTD 202414.65%

As of June 13, 2024.

Chipmaker Nvidia has driven over a third of S&P 500 returns this year, with its share price soaring 162% year-to-date as of June 13, 2024.

In June, Nvidia became the world’s most valuable firm, commanding an estimated 70% to 95% of the AI chip market. In the latest quarter, revenue surged by threefold compared to a year earlier amid high chip demand. Overall, big tech companies such as Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft made up roughly 45% of its data-center revenue, with Meta running a staggering 350,000 H100 chips to power its AI systems this year alone.

Falling in second is Microsoft, which has invested billions in AI startups including OpenAI and Wayve, a self-driving car firm. Microsoft is a cloud service provider for ChatGPT, the large language model built by OpenAI. As AI demand exceeds capacity, and other business segments see solid growth, Microsoft’s revenue increased 17% year-over-year as of the second quarter of 2024.

Google’s parent, Alphabet, ranks next, followed by Meta and

The Most Popular Stocks in Hedge Fund Portfolios

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June 25, 2024 Article/Editing: Graphics/Design:

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The Most Popular Stocks in Hedge Fund Portfolios

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In 2023, hedge funds managed over $4 trillion in assets, hitting a record high.

While the industry saw tepid returns over much of the last decade, it has seen a resurgence in interest amid a rising rate environment. Often, hedge funds cater to an investor base of pension funds, high-net worth investors, and university endowments.

The above graphic shows the most popular hedge fund investments, based on 13F filings via WhaleWisdom.

The Top Hedge Fund Investments

Overall, Microsoft stands as the most popular company, with 874 hedge funds holding the stock.

As the megacap ramps up its AI offerings, it is capturing significant interest from hedge funds. In 2024, Microsoft shares are up over 20% as of June 24, sitting near all-time highs. Like Microsoft, a substantial share of hedge funds hold big tech stocks such as Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia.

Here are the most commonly held stocks in hedge fund portfolios as of the first quarter of 2024:

RankCompanyShare of Hedge Funds
Holding the StockNumber of Hedge Funds
Holding the Stock 1Microsoft44%874 2Amazon42%835 3Alphabet Class A38%745 4Apple36%714 5Meta36%710 6Nvidia34%675 7Alphabet Class C32%631 8Visa31%617 9JPMorgan Chase & Co29%570 10Berkshire Hathaway
Class B28%564 11Mastercard26%521 12UnitedHealth Group26%518 13Johnson & Johnson26%517 14ExxonMobil Corp25%499 15Eli Lilly & Co.25%498 Advertisement

Ranking in fourth is Apple, with 36% of hedge funds investing in the company.

On a net basis, hedge funds added over 26 million shares of Apple to their portfolios over the quarter, the highest among the group. Hedge funds are increasingly warming up to the stock ahead of Apple introducing AI enhancements to its iPhones this year or in 2025.

By contrast, hedge funds made the greatest reductions in Nvidia and Alphabet on a net basis. Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management LLC was among the hedge funds

Ranked: The World’s Top 10 Billionaires in 2024

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June 20, 2024

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The World’s Top 10 Billionaires (June 2024)

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Elon Musk has reached a net worth of $205.4 billion in 2024, securing his position as the richest billionaire in the world, ahead of Jeff Bezos at $203.2 billion and Bernard Arnault at $200 billion. Arnault, the billionaire chairman and CEO of the global luxury goods company LVMH, led the ranking at the beginning of the year.

Using data from Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, we provide a snapshot of the top 10 billionaires in the world as of June 11, 2024. It is important to note that the rank changes frequently due to fluctuations in stock prices, market conditions, and significant business transactions.

$1.6T in Combined Wealth

The wealth of the top 10 wealthiest people ($1.6 trillion) is almost equivalent to Mexico’s GDP, the 14th largest economy in the world.

At the top of the list, Elon Musk’s wealth derives primarily from his stake in Tesla, his holdings in SpaceX, and the social media platform X.

RankNameNet Worth (USD in Billions)Source 1Elon Musk$205.40Tesla, SpaceX 3Jeff Bezos$203.20Amazon 2Bernard Arnault & family$200.00LVMH 4Mark Zuckerberg$176.50Facebook 5Larry Ellison$153.70Oracle 6Larry Page$145.10Google 8Sergey Brin$139.00Google 7Warren Buffett$134.00Berkshire Hathaway 9Bill Gates$131.00Microsoft 10Steve Ballmer$126.50Microsoft

Recently, Tesla shareholders voted to approve a pay package worth approximately $50 billion for Musk at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. This decision is being challenged by a Delaware judge, who has described Musk’s award as “unfathomable.”

Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2024

Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos overtook Bernard Arnault as the second-wealthiest person in June 2024, after LVMH’s shares fell and Amazon’s shares slightly increased.

As a relevant side note, Arnault has also been carefully laying succession plans for LVMH this year, with the 75-year-old recently appointing two more of his sons to the company’s board in April 2024. This leaves just his youngest son without a spot on the

All of the World’s Trillion-Dollar Companies in One Chart

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June 19, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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All of the World’s Trillion-Dollar Companies in One Chart

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Chipmaker Nvidia is now the world’s most valuable company, which means its time for an update to our frequent “trillion-dollar club” post.

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the market capitalizations of the world’s trillion-dollar companies, as of June 18, 2024. Included for additional context is the market cap of the median S&P 500 firm (as of May 30, 2024), as well as Taiwan’s TSMC, which is the next closest company to reaching the $1 trillion milestone.

Data and Key Takeaways

The figures used to create this graphic are included in the table below. Numbers for each company come from Companiesmarketcap.com, while the median S&P 500 market cap was sourced from S&P Global.

CompanyMarket Cap (USD) 🇺🇸 Nvidia$3.34T 🇺🇸 Microsoft$3.32T 🇺🇸 Apple$3.29T 🇺🇸 Alphabet$2.17T 🇺🇸 Amazon$1.90T 🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco$1.79T 🇺🇸 Meta$1.27T 🇹🇼 TSMC$932B Median S&P 500 company$92B

Here are the key reasons behind each of these companies’ massive valuations:

Nvidia: Industry leader in data center chips, essential for training artificial intelligence Microsoft: Dominance in enterprise software products (e.g. Windows, Office, Azure) Apple: Strong track record of innovation and a large, loyal customer base Alphabet: Leading player in online advertising and other digital platforms (e.g. Google Search, Youtube) Amazon: Dominance in e-commerce and rising cloud computing market share through Amazon Web Services (AWS) Saudi Aramco: World’s largest oil producer with massive reserves Meta: Dominant player in social media (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp)

If you’re interested in learning more, check out our graphic: Visualizing How Big Tech Companies Make Their Billions.

Which Company Will Hit $1 Trillion Next?

As of June 18, there are a few candidates that could soon join the trillion-dollar club, including TSMC ($932B), Berkshire Hathaway ($881B), Eli Lilly ($847B), and Broadcom ($839B).

Most of these stocks have climbed significantly in 2024 so far, with TSMC up 77% since the start of

Charted: Stock Buybacks by the Magnificent Seven

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June 18, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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Charted: Stock Buybacks of the Magnificent Seven

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

By 2025, Goldman Sachs predicts that total U.S. stock buybacks will exceed $1 trillion. The bank sees this growth being driven by strong tech earnings growth and lower rates.

But what are buyback amounts like for the largest tech companies today?

This graphic looks at the total value of shares each Magnificent Seven company has repurchased in the last four quarters using data from their latest financial statements.

What is a Stock Buyback?

A stock buyback is when a company buys their own shares to reduce the number of available shares on the market. Companies may choose to buy back stock to return value to shareholders. Having fewer shares available improves earnings per share, and may drive up the stock price.

Buying back stocks can also come with risks, such as using up cash that would otherwise be put toward growing the business.

Stock Buybacks of Tech Titans

We gathered data from company financial statements to see how stock buyback amounts differed among the Magnificent Seven. Each total represents what companies reported from June 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024.

As we can see, the tech companies in the Magnificent Seven have been the ones buying back their stock over the past year.

CompanyTotal Stock BuybacksBuybacks as a % of Market Cap Apple$83B2.8% Alphabet (Google)$63B2.9% Meta$25B2.0% Microsoft$20B0.6% Nvidia$17B0.6% Amazon$0B0.0% Tesla$0B0.0%

Values rounded to the nearest billion. Company market caps are as of June 6, 2024.

Apple had by far the most share repurchases, raising its diluted earnings per share from $1.26 to $1.53. Going forward, Apple authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases, a U.S. record. The board says the repurchases are in light of their “confidence in Apple’s future and the value we see in our stock.”

On the flip side, both Amazon and Tesla did not issue stock buybacks in the last four quarters. Amazon’s CFO

Ranked: The 20 Biggest Tech Companies by Market Cap

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June 17, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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Ranked: The 20 Biggest Tech Companies by Market Cap

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

The world’s 20 biggest tech companies are worth over $20 trillion in total. To put this in perspective, this is nearly 18% of the stock market value globally.

This graphic shows which companies top the ranks, using data from Companiesmarketcap.com.

A Closer Look at The Top 20

Market capitalization (market cap) measures what a company is worth by taking the current share price and multiplying it by the number of shares outstanding. Here are the biggest tech companies according to their market cap on June 13, 2024.

RankCompanyCountry/RegionMarket Cap 1AppleU.S.$3.3T 2MicrosoftU.S.$3.3T 3NvidiaU.S.$3.2T 4AlphabetU.S.$2.2T 5AmazonU.S.$1.9T 6MetaU.S.$1.3T 7TSMCTaiwan$897B 8BroadcomU.S.$778B 9TeslaU.S.$582B 10TencentChina$453B 11ASMLNetherlands$415B 12OracleU.S.$384B 13SamsungSouth Korea$379B 14NetflixU.S.$281B 15AMDU.S.$258B 16QualcommU.S.$243B 17SAPGermany$225B 18SalesforceU.S.$222B 19PDD Holdings (owns Pinduoduo)China$212B 20AdobeU.S.$206B

Note: PDD Holdings says its headquarters remain in Shanghai, China, and Ireland is used for legal registration for its overseas business.

Apple is the largest tech company at the moment, having competed with Microsoft for the top of the leaderboard for many years. The company saw its market cap soar after announcing its generative AI, Apple Intelligence. Analysts believe people will upgrade their devices over the next few years, since the new features are only available on the iPhone 15 Pro or newer.

Microsoft is in second place in the rankings, partly thanks to enthusiasm for its AI software which is already generating revenue. Rising profits also contributed to the company’s value. For the quarter ended March 31, 2024, Microsoft increased its net income by 20% compared to the same quarter last year.

Nvidia follows closely behind with the third-highest market cap, rising more than eight times higher compared to its value at the start of 2023. The company has recently announced higher profits, introduced

Charted: How Many Data Centers do Major Big Tech Companies Have?

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June 4, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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How Many Data Centers do Major Big Tech Companies Have?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

The Big Tech companies are often compared against each other in many ways: how much money they make, market capitalization, and the newest flavor, generative AI capabilities.

But in their great strides to capture the digital realm, how many huge data facilities do they need for all their services, analytics, and storage?

Sourcing information from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and some third-party estimates for Apple and Amazon, we find out.

Ranked: Big Tech’s Data Facilities

Cloud computing giants—Microsoft and Amazon—have data centers in the triple-digits to accommodate their customers’ burgeoning business demands.

However, there’s no one standard of how big a data center needs to be, so quantity doesn’t automatically translate into greater capacity.

Big Tech CompanyData Centers Microsoft**300 AWS*215 Google25 Meta24 Apple*10
Note: *Third-party estimates vary depending on the source. AWS is usually listed between 160–220 and Apple from 8–10. **Microsoft lists their count as “300+.”

According to Statista, AWS still maintains the biggest market share in the cloud computing segment (31%) even as Microsoft Azure edges ever closer (25%).

In fact, Amazon is aiming to spend $150 billion on more facilities over the next 15 years. Estimates say 26 data centers are currently under construction. All of this, of course, to chase the AI boom.

Despite dominating our digital lives however, Big Tech aren’t the only players when it comes to data center metrics. For example, Digital Realty, a colocation data center provider, would rank alongside Microsoft with 300+ data facilities.

Learn More about Big Tech and AI from Visual Capitalist

If you enjoyed this post, and you’re wondering which Big Tech players have made their forays into AI, check out Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools. We visualize the most popular AI tools of 2023 along with recent tech adoption cycles and the software products that defined them.

Visualizing the Training Costs of AI Models Over Time

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June 4, 2024

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Visualizing the Training Costs of AI Models Over Time

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Training advanced AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini Ultra requires millions of dollars, with costs escalating rapidly.

As computational demands increase, the expenses for the computing power necessary to train them are soaring. In response, AI companies are rethinking how they train generative AI systems. In many cases, these include strategies to reduce computational costs given current growth trajectories.

This graphic shows the surge in training costs for advanced AI models, based on analysis from Stanford University’s 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index Report.

How Training Cost is Determined

The AI Index collaborated with research firm Epoch AI to estimate AI model training costs, which were based on cloud compute rental prices. Key factors that were analyzed include the model’s training duration, the hardware’s utilization rate, and the value of the training hardware.

While many have speculated that training AI models has become increasingly costly, there is a lack of comprehensive data supporting these claims. The AI Index is one of the rare sources for these estimates.

Ballooning Training Costs

Below, we show the training cost of major AI models, adjusted for inflation, since 2017:

YearModel NameModel Creators/ContributorsTraining Cost (USD)
Inflation-adjusted 2017TransformerGoogle$930 2018BERT-LargeGoogle$3,288 2019RoBERTa LargeMeta$160,018 2020GPT-3 175B (davinci)OpenAI$4,324,883 2021Megatron-Turing NLG 530BMicrosoft/NVIDIA$6,405,653 2022LaMDAGoogle$1,319,586 2022PaLM (540B)Google$12,389,056 2023GPT-4OpenAI$78,352,034 2023Llama 2 70BMeta$3,931,897 2023Gemini UltraGoogle$191,400,000

Last year, OpenAI’s GPT-4 cost an estimated $78.4 million to train, a steep rise from Google’s PaLM (540B) model, which cost $12.4 million just a year earlier.

For perspective, the training cost for Transformer, an early AI model developed in 2017, was $930. This model plays a foundational role in shaping the architecture of many large language models used today.

Google’s AI model, Gemini Ultra, costs even more, at a staggering $191 million. As of early 2024, the model outperforms GPT-4 on several metrics, most notably across the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark. This benchmark serves

Nvidia is Worth More Than All of These Companies Combined

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May 27, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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Putting the Market Cap of Nvidia Into Perspective

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Nvidia’s massive rise in the AI era has been well-documented, but did you know that it’s currently the world’s third most valuable company?

To put the massive market cap of Nvidia into perspective, we’ve put it side by side with a collection of other major U.S. tech companies.

All figures were sourced from Companiesmarketcap.com, and are as of May 23, 2024.

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Data and Takeaways

All of the numbers we used to create this graphic are included in the table below.

CompanyMarket Cap
(as of May 23, 2024) Nvidia$2.5T Meta$1.2T Tesla$553B Netflix$272B AMD$257B Intel$128B IBM$157B

These figures are even more impressive when you consider that at the beginning of 2020, Nvidia was valued at a relatively tiny $145 billion.

Since then, the company has greatly surpassed other American chipmakers like Intel and AMD. This growth is due to several key factors:

Expansion into AI and data centers: Nvidia’s chips are highly effective for AI training, making them essential for companies engaged in machine learning and generative AI Advancements in AI software: Nvidia has developed AI software platforms, such as CUDA-X and TensorRT, which are widely used by researchers. Strong financial performance: Nvidia has consistently delivered strong financial results in recent years, with substantial revenue growth. Closing in on Apple

With Nvidia’s latest stock surge (up 13.5% over the past five days ending May 24, 2024), the company could possibly overtake Apple to become the world’s second most valuable company.

Microsoft, another major player in AI, holds the #1 spot with a market cap of $3.2 trillion.

See More Visuals on Nvidia

If you enjoyed this graphic, be sure to check out this graphic that breaks down Nvidia’s revenue by product line, from 2019 to 2024.

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