AI, shares of the best cryptographic technologies: AppLovin, MicroStrategy, Palantir, Nvidia

Artificial intelligence is still an abstract concept for many everyday consumers who are unsure how it will change their lives. However, there is no question whether companies see the value in this.

Some of the biggest winners of this year's stock market rally, which has seen the Nasdaq surge 33% and other U.S. indexes post double-digit gains, have direct ties to rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Chip manufacturer Nvidia he is among them, but he is not alone.

Another standout theme that has delivered outperformance this year is cryptocurrencies. Starting from beginning bitcoin spot funds in January, cryptocurrencies had a strong 2024, punctuated by Donald Trump the electoral victory that was financed largely by the crypto industry. Many cryptocurrency-related stocks have gained big gains.

For four trading days a year, we present the top five U.S. technology stocks that are the best performers in 2024 among companies valued at least $5 billion.

AppLovin it entered the year with a market capitalization of about $13 billion and was best known for its investments in a number of mobile game studios that produced titles such as “Woody Block Puzzle,” “Clockmaker” and “Bingo Story.”

At the end of the year, AppLovin's valuation exceeded $110 billion, making it worth over Starbucks, Intel AND Airbnb. As of Tuesday's close, AppLovin shares were up 758% this year. unsurpassed all other tech companies.

While AppLovin became public knowledge in 2021, riding on the wave of online gaming enthusiasm in the Covid era, the company is now focusing on online advertising and the growing returns from advances in artificial intelligence.

Last year, AppLovin released an updated version 2.0 of its ad search engine called AXON, which helps place more targeted ads in gaming apps the company owns and is also used by studios that license the technology. Third-quarter software platform revenues grew 66% to $835 million, outpacing overall growth of 39%.

Net income for the quarter increased 300%, raising the company's profit margin to 36.3% from 12.6% during the year.

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi, whose net worth has surpassed $10 billion, he's even more excited about what's to come. During the company's November earnings call, Foroughi showed off an e-commerce test project that allows companies to offer targeted in-game advertising.

“In all these years, it's the best product I've ever seen us release, the fastest growing, but still in the pilot phase,” he said.

After climbing 346% in 2023, it was hard to imagine MicroStrategy time to find another gear. But it happened.

The company's share price has increased by 467% this year. based on the bitcoin buying strategy that made founder Michael Saylor a cryptocurrency cult hero.

In mid-2020, the company announced its plan to start purchasing bitcoin. Up until that point, MicroStrategy was a mid-tier business analytics software provider, but has since purchased over 444,000 bitcoins, taking advantage of the ever-rising share price to sell shares, take on debt, and buy more coins.

He is currently the fourth largest bitcoin holder in the world, behind only creator Satoshi Nakamoto, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, whose stocks are valued at nearly $44 billion. MicroStrategy's market capitalization has grown from about $1.1 billion when it was just a software company to $80 billion today.

While the rally continued well into November, Trump's election victory last month added fuel. Since then, the stock has surged 57%, while Bitcoin has gained about 44%. Trump once called Bitcoin a “fraud,” but it was the industry's preferred choice in this election and had strong support from some top players, including Coinbase.

“With the red tide, Bitcoin is surging and the rest of the digital assets will start surging as well,” Saylor told CNBC shortly after the election. He said bitcoin remains a “safe trade” in the cryptocurrency space, but with the introduction of a “digital asset framework” for the broader cryptocurrency market, “there will be explosive growth across the digital asset industry.”

Palantir in 2024 had many significant gains on the way to a 380% share price increase. One of its best times ever came last month when the software maker raised its revenue forecasts the day before the presidential election.

A company that sells data analysis tools to defense agencies, he jumped its 2024 target, and fourth-quarter guidance missed analyst estimates. Palantir also posted top third-quarter results, as reported by CEO Alex Karp profit release“We completely gutted this quarter, driven by relentless AI demand that shows no sign of slowing.”

The company's shares jumped 23% on the earnings report, and another 8.6% the day after Trump's victory. Co-founder and board member of Palantir Peter Thiel was a big supporter of Trump's 2016 campaign and helped organize meeting with technical directors at Trump Tower shortly after this election. Karp was one of the participants.

Karp, however, openly supported the vice president Kamala HarrisDemocratic candidate, in the 2024 campaign. Him he told The New York Times. in an article published in August that Thiel's past support for Trump and the subsequent backlash made it “actually harder to get things done.”

Nevertheless, after the election, Wall Street sided with Palantir, believing that more military spending would flow to the company.

Karp's statements in the pre-election results report suggest that the company will do well anyway.

“Our business growth is accelerating and our financial performance is exceeding expectations as we meet continued demand for the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies from the U.S. government and commercial customers,” Karp said in the report letter to shareholders.

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

Robinhood the stock has more than tripled this year, despite falling 17% on October 31 disappointing earnings.

Investors crunched the numbers a few days later, sending the stock surging 20% ​​after Trump's election victory as all things cryptocurrency-related rose. One of Robinhood's biggest growth drivers is cryptocurrencies, which retail investors can easily purchase on the app along with their shares.

Cryptocurrency transaction revenue increased 165% in the third quarter from a year earlier to $61 million, representing 10% of total net revenue.

In addition to bitcoin, Robinhood users can easily buy about 20 other cryptocurrencies, ranging from popular digital assets like Ethereum to alt-coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Bonk. At the company's November investor day, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that cryptocurrencies are more than just an investment, but also a “disruptive technology that will transform the underlying infrastructure related to payments, lending and a wide range of tradable assets.”

According to LSEG, analysts expect Robinhood to report fourth-quarter revenue growth of more than 70% to $805.7 million, which would be the fastest growth rate of any quarter since 2021, when the company became public knowledge.

Robinhood's growth this year has outpaced that of Coinbase, which is up 61%. However, with a market capitalization of $70 billion, Coinbase is still twice as valuable.

Nvidia the amazing run continues.

Next last year Thanks to a 239% surge fueled by excitement around generative AI, Nvidia has surged another 183% this year, increasing its market capitalization by an impressive $2.2 trillion.

Twice this year Nvidia grabbed the title the world's most valuable listed company. Apple has jumped ahead and is approaching $4 trillion, while Nvidia is reaching $3.4 trillion and Microsoft at USD 3.3 trillion.

Nvidia remains the biggest beneficiary of the AI ​​boom as major cloud providers and internet companies take advantage of all available GPUs. Annual revenue has grown at least 94% in each of the last six quarters, and has exceeded 200% three times during this period.

CEO Jensen Huang said in a company release latest earnings report that a next-generation AI chip called Blackwell is in “full production.” Finance chief Colette Kress said the company was on track to achieve “several billion dollars” in Blackwell revenue in the fourth quarter.

“Every customer is racing to be the first to market,” Kress said. “Blackwell is now in the hands of all of our major partners as they work to modernize their data centers.”

While growth is expected to remain strong for a company of Nvidia's size, an inevitable slowdown is coming. Analysts predict an annual slowdown over the next few quarters, with growth slowing to the mid-40s in the second half of next year.

Nvidia is counting on too much revenue from a few tech giants, so any economic fluctuations pose a serious risk to investors.

That helps explain why Nvidia likes to tell Wall Street about the wide range of companies that are creating new AI services and “racing to accelerate the development of these applications, with the potential for billions of agents to be deployed in the coming years,” Kress said during the talk about earnings.

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