For many everyday consumers, artificial intelligence remains an abstract concept, unsure of how it will change their lives. But there’s no question whether companies find value in it.

Some of the biggest winners from this year’s stock market rally (the Nasdaq is up 33% and other U.S. stock indexes are up by double digits) are directly related to the rapid development of artificial intelligence. chip maker NVIDIA is one of them, but it’s not alone.

Another prominent theme driving this year’s outperformance is cryptocurrency. from emission In Spot Bitcoin ETFs in January, Cryptocurrency Experienced a Big Rise in 2024, During which donald trump Election victory, that’s what funded Heavily influenced by the cryptocurrency industry. Many cryptocurrency-related stocks surged.

With four trading days left in the year, here are the five best-performing U.S. tech stocks among companies valued at $5 billion or more in 2024.

Apply love It entered this year with a market capitalization of about $13 billion and is best known for investing in a string of mobile game studios that have made games such as Woody Block Puzzle, Clockmaker and Bingo Story.

By the end of the year, AppLovin’s valuation had soared to $110 billion, making it worth more than Starbucks, Intel and Airbnb. As of Tuesday’s close, AppLovin shares have risen 758% this year transcend All other tech companies.

WhenAppLovin Listed In 2021, riding the wave of COVID-era online gaming, the business is now centered around lucrative profits from online advertising and advances in artificial intelligence.

Last year, AppLovin released an updated version 2.0 of its ad search engine called AXON, which helps serve more targeted ads on gaming apps it owns and is also working on licensing the technology. room use. Software platform revenue increased 66% in the third quarter to $835 million, exceeding total growth of 39%.

Net profit soared 300% in the quarter, lifting the company’s profit margin to 36.3% from 12.6% a year ago.

Adam Foroughi, CEO of AppLovin net worth Having passed $10 billion, we are even more excited about what is to come. During the company’s November earnings call, Foroughi raved about a test e-commerce program that allows businesses to serve targeted ads in games.

“In all my years, this is the best product I’ve ever seen us launch, the fastest growing, but it’s still in the pilot phase,” he said.

back Climb 346% In 2023, it’s hard to imagine microstrategic Stock looking for another gear. But it did.

The company’s share price has Soared 467% this year The Bitcoin buying strategy turned founder Michael Saylor into a cryptocurrency cult hero.

In mid-2020, the company announced plans to start buying Bitcoin. MicroStrategy has been a middling business intelligence software provider until now, but since then it has purchased more than 444,000 Bitcoins, using its rising stock price as a way to sell stock, raise debt and buy more tokens .

It is now the fourth largest Bitcoin holder in the world, behind founder Satoshi Nakamoto, BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, whose inventory is worth nearly $44 billion. MicroStrategy’s market value has soared from about $1.1 billion as a software company to $80 billion today.

Although the rally had begun before November, Trump’s election victory last month added fuel to the fire. Since then, the stock has gained 57%, while Bitcoin has gained about 44%. Trump has called Bitcoin a “fraud,” but he is the industry’s top choice this election and has strong support from some major players, including Coin Library.

Shortly after the election, Thaler told CNBC: “As the red sweeps and Bitcoin surges, other digital assets will start to surge as well.” He said that Bitcoin is still a “safe transaction” in the crypto space, but as the broader With the “Digital Asset Framework” in place for the crypto market, “there will be a surge in the entire digital asset industry.”

Palantir In 2024, the company’s stock price increased by 380%, experiencing multiple significant gains. The software company’s best performance last month was when it raised its revenue forecast a day before the presidential election.

The company sells data analysis tools to defense agencies, bump into Its 2024 target and fourth-quarter guidance exceeded analysts’ expectations. Palantir’s third-quarter results also topped the list, CEO Alex Karp announced during the earnings release earnings release”, “We absolutely failed miserably this quarter, driven by continued demand for artificial intelligence. “

The stock rose 23% after the earnings report was released, and rose another 8.6% the day after Trump’s victory. Palantir Co-Founder and Board Member Peter Thiel was a key supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign and helped organize a Meet with technology executives at Trump Tower shortly after the election. Karp was one of the attendees.

However, Kapp publicly supported the Vice President Kamala HarrisDemocratic candidates in the 2024 race. he told the New York Times In a report published in August, Thiel’s earlier support for Trump and subsequent backlash made it “actually harder to get things done.”

Still, Wall Street remains optimistic about Palantir following the election, believing more military spending will flow to the company.

Karp’s comments in a pre-election earnings report suggested the company would be fine no matter what.

“Our business growth is accelerating and our financial results are exceeding expectations as we meet unwavering demand for the most advanced artificial intelligence technology from U.S. government and commercial customers,” Karp said in a statement. Letter to shareholders.

Analysts expect revenue to grow about 24% in 2025, to $3.5 billion, according to LSEG.

Robin Hood Despite falling 17% on October 31, the company’s shares have more than tripled this year Disappointing earnings.

A few days later, investors stopped paying attention to the numbers as all crypto-related stocks rose, with the stock up 20% following Trump’s election. One of Robinhood’s biggest growth engines is cryptocurrency, which retail investors can easily buy on the app as well as stocks.

Cryptocurrency trading revenue increased 165% year-on-year to $61 million in the third quarter, accounting for 10% of total net revenue.

In addition to Bitcoin, Robinhood users can easily purchase about 20 other cryptocurrencies, ranging from popular digital assets like Ethereum to altcoins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Bonk. At the company’s investor day in November, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that cryptocurrencies are not just an investment but a “disruptive technology that will change the underlying foundation of payments, loans and all kinds of tradable assets.” facility”.

Analysts expect Robinhood’s fourth-quarter revenue to rise more than 70% to $805.7 million, which would be the company’s fastest growth rate for any quarter since 2021, according to LSEG. Listed.

Robinhood has outpaced Coinbase this year, which is up 61%. But Coinbase, with a market capitalization of $70 billion, is still worth twice that.

NVIDIA The amazing run continues.

The following last year’s Driven by excitement about generative AI, Nvidia has surged another 183% this year, adding $2.2 trillion in market value, a 239% increase.

Twice this year Nvidia won the championship The world’s most valuable public company. apple has regained the lead, approaching US$4 trillion, of which NVIDIA is US$3.4 trillion. Microsoft $3.3 trillion.

Nvidia remains the biggest beneficiary of the artificial intelligence boom, as the largest cloud providers and internet companies snap up all the graphics processing units they can find. Annual revenue has grown by at least 94% in each of the past six quarters, including by more than 200% three times.

CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in a company announcement latest earnings report The next-generation artificial intelligence chip called Blackwell is in “full production.” Blackwell’s fourth-quarter revenue is on track to be in the “billions of dollars,” Finance Chief Colette Kress said.

“Every customer is in a race to be the first to market,” Kress said. “Blackwell is now in the hands of all of our key partners who are working hard to build out their data centers.”

While growth is expected to remain strong for a company of Nvidia’s size, an inevitable slowdown is coming. Analysts expect economic growth to slow year-on-year in the coming quarters, with growth falling into the mid-40s by the second half of next year.

Nvidia relies on the huge revenues of a handful of tech giants, so any economic fluctuations pose significant risks to investors.

This helps explain why Nvidia likes to tell Wall Street about the plethora of companies that are building new AI services and is “racing to accelerate the development of these applications and potentially deploy billions of agents in the coming years,” says Reis said. on the earnings call.

watch: Next year is the “stock picking market”