Just 20 stocks account for almost 90 per cent of the US benchmark index’s $2.36tn gains so far this year, as instability in the banking sector has driven down interest rate expectations and boosted the attraction of Big Tech.
Among the big gainers, shares in chipmaker Nvidia have climbed by 83 per cent so far this year, while Facebook owner Meta is up 76 per cent and Salesforce has climbed 42 per cent, underlining the heavy concentration in the world’s most influential stock market.
The market value of those and the other 17 best performing stocks in the S&P 500 have surged by $2.05tn in 2023. Apple’s valuation alone has shot up by almost $600bn, or 30 per cent, in the past three months.