Five charts to start your day

There were lots of winners and loser in the US stock market in 2023

We are a week into 2024 and I can’t help but look back. 2023 was a weird year for the US stock market. There were lots of dramatic ups and downs. But most noticeable was the terrific run, led by the “magnificent seven”: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Nvidia, Alphabet, Tesla and Meta Platforms. In fact, Nvidia soared 244%, riding on the wave of exuberance over AI.

Take a look at the first chart we have today. The “magnificent seven” have taken quite a tumble in this first week of 2024. Perhaps what we are seeing is a reversion to the mean.

In 2023, 79% of all the stocks in the S&P 500 underperformed the broader index because the “magnificent seven” massively outperformed. Historically, the last time this happened was 25 years ago in 1998 to 1999, when the dot-com bubble was inflating rapidly. Are we in the same situation today? Or is this time different?

Source: Quant Insight

Coming up:

• Who were the winners and losers in the US stock market in 2023

• Private equity has delivered the highest annualised return over 15 years

• The amount of Covid present in waste water has risen rapidly recently

• Good and bad things that happened in 2023 according to Gapminder

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