• EV-makers Tesla and Nio have taken a beating with a combined loss of over 80% of potential return so far this year.
• A £1,000 investment in NVIDIA at the start 2024 would have more than doubled to £2,575 on 1 July 2024.
• The 10 most popular stocks returned an average of 23.32% since the start of 2024, returning £12,332 if £1,000 had been invested in each.

16 July 2024, LONDON –

Research by personal finance site finder.com analysed the performance of the 10 most popular stocks of 2023 in an interactive chart to find out which company has performed the best in the first half of 2024.

As of 1 July 2024, NVIDIA’s share price has more than doubled, returning a staggering gain of 157.56%. An investment of £1,000* at the start of the year would now be worth £2,575, reflecting an additional £1,575 in just the first half of the year.

Fuelled by the ongoing AI boom, Nvidia surged to become the world’s most valuable company in June 2024, eclipsing established tech giants in the process. This rise highlights the growing importance of AI in the tech landscape.

EV and retail stocks lagging in 2024

While NVIDIA is dominating the most popular stocks, those investing in EVs have gotten off to a disappointing start. A £1,000 investment* in Tesla at the start of 2024 would have dropped in value to £843, a drop of 15.00%, marking a downward trend for the industry.

Chinese competitor Nio has also suffered heavy losses, with the only other EV stock in the top 10 falling by 47.37% since the start of the year. A £1,000 fictitious investment in Nio at the start of 2024 would have just about halved to £526.

E-commerce giants Amazon (up 31.28% in 2024) and Alibaba (down 3.63%) present a tale of two titans. While Amazon’s diversified business model, including cloud computing (AWS), seems to be fueling its stock price, Alibaba might be facing headwinds from regulatory scrutiny and a slowing Chinese economy.

The 10 most popular stocks give average returns of almost 23.32%

Finder’s investment tracker shows that 6 out of the 10 most popular stocks would have given positive returns so far in 2024, with an average of 23.32%. If someone had placed £1,000 in each of the top 10 stocks at the start of 2024, they would have made gains of £2,332 on their initial investment of £10,000, as of 1 July 2024.

To compare, if someone had placed £10,000 in a fixed-rate savings account with an interest rate of 5.66% at the start of 2024, they would have made gains of just £283 by the same date, which is a shocking difference of £2,049.

Highlighting the potential volatility of investing, 4 of the 10 most popular stocks have given negative returns so far in 2024. Of those, Tesla is down 15.68%, Paypal is down 6.12%, Nio is down 47.37% and Alibaba is down 3.63%.

Follow the investment challenge to see what an investment* of £1,000 at the start of 2024 would have returned for each of the most popular stocks.

George Sweeney, investing expert at finder.com, comments on the trade-off between saving and investing:

“Cash savings rates have remained high throughout 2024, with the base rate set by the Bank of England sticking above 5%. However, our research shows that investing in assets can be more profitable for those who are willing to accept a degree of volatility and are happy taking a long-term approach to wealth building.”

Methodology:

Our chart tracks the value of a £1,000 investment made at the start of 2024 in the following companies: Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Paypal, Meta, Microsoft, NIO, NVIDIA and Tesla. These stocks were taken from eToro’s top 10 most-watched stocks list at the end of 2023. *The £1,000 hasn’t actually been saved or invested in these methods, it is just being used as a way to illustrate the performance and potential returns of each method.