How the top 10 most popular stocks of 2023 have fared in the new year

How the top 10 most popular stocks of 2023 have fared in the new year: EVs take a tumble and NVIDIA nearly doubles

 
 A $1,000 investment in Tesla at the start of 2024 would have dropped to a shocking $650 on 15 April 2024.
 
A $1,000 investment in NVIDIA at the start 2024 would have nearly doubled to $1,785 on 15 April 2024.
 
The 10 most popular stocks returned an average of 7.11% since the start of 2024, returning £10,711 if $1,000 had been invested in each.

 
Research by price comparison website finder.com analysed the performance of the 10 most popular stocks of 2023 in a live chart to find out which company has performed the best since the start of 2024.

As of 15 April 2024, NVIDIA’s share price has nearly doubled, with an investment* of $1,000 at the start of the year returning $1,785 after only 72 market days.

The recent success seen by NVIDIA is likely due to the continued buzz around AI in the mainstream media. The California tech giant has been leading the rest of last year’s top 10 most popular stocks since the start of 2024.
 

EV stocks take a tumble 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 $650, a drop of 35.00%, 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 53.80% since the start of the year.  A $1,000 fictitious investment in Nio at the start of 2024 would have more than halved to $462.
 

The 10 most popular stocks give average returns of almost 7.11%

 
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 7.11%. If someone had placed $1,000 in each of the top 10 stocks at the start of 2024, they would have made gains of $711 on their initial investment of $10,000, as of 15 April 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 $165 by the same date, which is a significant difference of $546.

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 35.00%, Apple is down 6.98%, Nio is down 53.80% and Alibaba is down 5.54%.

Follow the live chart 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:

“It is important to keep in mind that investing is far more volatile and your capital is at risk, so you may get back less than you invested. However, it is interesting to see the fictional difference between saving and investing. ”
 
Methodology:
 
Our live 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.