The 7 best stocks right now

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One thing that is dominating the U.S. stock market in 2024 is artificial intelligence and AI. All of the major tech companies have thrived on AI and will most likely continue to do so in the near future.

In 2024, the stock market experienced several positive milestones, including the Dow surpassing 40,000 points for the first time and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reaching all-time highs. Moreover, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Amazon joined the $2 trillion club, and Nvidia became the largest company by market value.

Now that 2024 has reached the halfway point, here are the top-performing S&P 500 stocks of the year, as per FactSet data. And check out the worst-performing stocks here.

7. CrowdStrike Holdings: ⬆️ 52.51% YTD

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The cybersecurity industry has been thriving for years and is still experiencing significant growth. While some companies have struggled to keep up, CrowdStrike Holdings has managed to sustain its growth.

CrowdStrike Holdings is a global cybersecurity company that offers cloud-based protection for endpoints, cloud workloads, identity, and data. The company’s stock has risen by over 52% year-to-date and 154% over the past year.

6. Eli Lilly: ⬆️ 54.87% YTD

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A new era in the pharmaceutical industry is marked by the emergence of groundbreaking weight-loss medications. One such drug, Zepbound, is being manufactured by Eli Lilly. It sold $176 million of the stuff in the first four weeks it had the drug on the market. Due to the growing popularity of weight loss drugs, the company is planning to replace Zepbound with an even stronger weight loss drug.

The company’s stock has risen by over 55% year-to-date and 98% over the past year.

5. Micron Technology: ⬆️ 56.85% YTD

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Chipmaker Micron is thriving due to the AI boom, posting revenue of $6.81 billion in its latest earnings report – an 80% jump from the previous year.

Micron is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world and the only U.S.-based manufacturer of computer memory chips. In April, Micron received $6.1 billion in Chips and Science Act funds to build chip fabrication plants (fabs) in central New York and Idaho.

The company’s stock has risen by over 56% year-to-date and 99% over the past year.

4. GE Aerospace ⬆️ 56.99% YTD

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GE Aerospace and GE Vernova began trading as two separate entities on the New York Stock Exchange this year. While GE Vernova focuses on a new standalone energy company, GE Aerospace’s focus is on aviation technology products. Moreover, the company announced that it would raise its dividend by 250% in April.

GE Aerospace has experienced significant growth this year, with stocks increasing by over 56% and over 86% in the past year.

3. Constellation Energy: ⬆️ 74.70% YTD

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The Inflation Reduction Act is allocating substantial funds to clean-energy companies. Constellation Energy also received a significant portion of these funds and is enthusiastic about the commercial prospects of its nuclear plants. And that’s why the stock price has risen by almost 75% this year and 125% in the past year.

2. Nvidia: ⬆️ 150.68% YTD

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If there was one company that was on every investor’s mind this year, it was Nvidia. The high demand for its Hopper GPUs, or graphics processing units, which are used in training and inferencing leading large language models (LLMs), boosted the company’s growth. The chipmaker announced its next-generation Blackwell AI chip platform in March and said that demand for both Hopper and Blackwell chips is exceeding supply.

Furthermore, the stock split strategy increased the demand for the stock even more. This is the reason why Nvidia became the world’s most valuable public company, surpassing Apple and Microsoft.

The company’s stock has risen by over 150% year-to-date and 209% over the past year.

Super Micro Computer: ⬆️ 199.62% YTD

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Super Micro Computers has had a strong start to 2024, positioning itself as a leader in the rapidly growing AI market. The company was added to the S&P 500 index in March, and in June, it made it to the Fortune 500 for the first time.

Unlike Nvidia, Super Micro Computer doesn’t make AI chips. It makes hardware that supports AI applications. Super Micro Computers has been experiencing significant growth due to the high demand for data center servers used to train and operate artificial intelligence models.

The company’s stock has risen by almost 200% year-to-date and 262% over the past year.

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