With interest rates easing off, it has been a winning year for stock markets of many stripes. The FTSE 100 has returned nearly 11 per cent so far in 2024, Asian equities have made 17.5 per cent in sterling terms, thanks in part to a resurgence in Chinese shares, and the MSCI World index is up by roughly the same.
As of mid-October, Japan's Topix was up by more than 7 per cent, even after August's flash crash, putting it roughly in line with the gains made by European equities. And yet once again the stand-out performer has been the S&P 500, which has returned just shy of 20 per cent so far this year. This is down in no small part, once again, to a handful of stocks.
Nvidia (US:NVDA) is up by more than 170 per cent, with Meta (US:META) up 67 per cent and Amazon (US:AMZN) up 24 per cent. Tesla (US:TSLA), which is down by around 12 per cent, is the only outlier to a trend that has seen every other Magnificent Seven stock make at least a double-digit gain.