Nvidia was the star of 2024’s blue chips, but the pioneers of the small-cap industry posted exhilarating gains on the charts – here are the chart toppers – AppLovin (NASDAQ:APP), American Express (NYSE: AXP)

Small-cap stocks emerged as the standout performers in 2024, significantly outperforming blue chips amid a broad market rally.

What Happened: The gap among the year’s top performers was particularly stark with small-cap leader KULR Technology Group. cool NVIDIA Corporation, the blue-chip frontrunner, delivered an impressive return of 2,494%. NVDA It still scored an impressive 184%.

Traditional blue-chip stocks, typically a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, showed their characteristic stability while still posting notable gains.

Historically, small-cap stocks, typically worth between $250 million and $3 billion, have shown the potential to outperform the S&P 500 despite higher volatility. The Russell 2000, which tracks this segment, serves as a key benchmark for small-cap performance.

Market performance comparison in 2024 with data from Benzinga Pro:

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Why it matters: Small-cap stocks’ exceptional performance is in line with ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood’s mid-2024 prediction that small companies will outperform the tech giants known as the “Magnificent Seven.” Masu. Wood attributed the change to the Federal Reserve’s restrictive financial policies and suggested there could be opportunities beyond mega-cap stocks.

The shift comes as veteran Wall Street investor Ed Yardeni cites a “Roaring 2020s” scenario driven by increased productivity and lower inflation, with the S&P 500 reaching 7,000 by the end of 2025. This happened while we were predicting that this would happen. Yardeni predicts that operating earnings per share for the S&P 500 will reach $285 in 2025, an 18.8% increase from a year ago.