As spring blossoms, a crop of companies are already displaying beautiful blooms of returns for their shareholders. Among them are some familiar names. There are also a few surprises.
Rounded up here are the best-performing S&P 500 stocks of 2024 — so far. And check out the worst stocks here.
A new generation of weight-loss drugs is one of the biggest stories in the pharmaceutical industry. One of them, Zepbound, is being produced by Eli Lilly. It sold $176 million of the stuff in the first four weeks it had the drug on the market. It made an Oscars commercial telling patients not to hoard the medication. Zepbound is no Ozempic, and Eli Lilly is no Novo Nordisk, but the company is doing pretty well for itself this year.
For a long time people were pretty down on General Electric. It was too big, too complicated, too staid. But then it began breaking itself up into bite-size pieces to become more nimble. And now people are rushing back to get in on the action — and a piece of those pieces.
The most famous brand in the Deckers Outdoor Group portfolio is Ugg, the maker of every teen’s favorite fuzzy boots and slippers. But the company is also seeing a lot of buzz at its Hoka running shoe division. An analyst called its latest earnings report a “blowout.” Deckers just joined the S&P 500, and the market is welcoming it warmly.
The Metaverse is back. And a Meta dividend is here for the first time ever. Profits are up, though layoffs played a big part. Investors are hoping it will be able to turn AI into its next big revenue engine, despite fears of election-year misinformation. Earlier this year, the social media giant became a trillion-dollar company.
The Inflation Reduction Act is sending a lot of money to clean-energy companies. A lot of that money is going to Constellation Energy, which is excited about the business potential of its nuclear plants. Wall Street expects the money to keep flowing, and the stock has kept rising.
Nvidia is the chipmaker supreme, the linchpin of the AI revolution. Companies are desperate for its chips, and that energy shows no signs of dissipating. The company is also one of the world’s most valuable.
Super Micro Computer, Inc., which makes servers, motherboards, and other computing infrastructure, saw its stock dip 9% Tuesday after it revealed plans to sell more shares in order to finance expansion plans. But the brand-new member of the S&P 500 is benefitting from the same AI wave that’s lifting Nvidia. The shares that are already on the market have risen more than any other company’s in the index so far this year.
