What a beautiful yr 2024 has been for traders.

U.S. shares ripped larger and carried the S&P 500 to data because the financial system stored rising and the Federal Reserve started reducing rates of interest.

The yr featured many acquainted winners, akin to Huge Tech, which bought even larger as their inventory costs stored rising. However it wasn’t simply Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin, gold and different investments additionally drove larger.

This is a take a look at a number of the numbers that outlined the yr. All are as of Dec. 20.

1998

Bear in mind when President Invoice Clinton bought impeached or when baseball’s Mark McGwire hit his seventieth dwelling run in opposition to the Montreal Expos? That was the final time the U.S. inventory market closed out a second straight yr with a leap of a minimum of 20%, one thing the S&P 500 is on monitor to do once more this yr. The index has climbed 24.3% to date this yr, not together with dividends, following final yr’s spurt of 24.2%.

57

The variety of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set to date this yr. The primary got here early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon attributable to excessive inflation and worries that top rates of interest instituted by the Federal Reserve to fight it might create a recession. However the index was methodical by way of the remainder of the yr, setting a report in each month outdoors of April and August, in keeping with S&P Dow Jones Indices. The newest got here on Dec. 6.

3

The variety of occasions the Federal Reserve has reduce its principal rate of interest this yr from a two-decade excessive, providing some reduction to the financial system. Expectations for these cuts, together with hopes for extra in 2025, had been an enormous motive the U.S. inventory market has been so profitable this yr. The 1 share level of cuts, although, remains to be in need of the 1.5 share factors that many merchants had been forecasting for 2024 in the beginning of the yr. The Fed disillusioned traders in December when it stated it might reduce charges simply two extra occasions in 2025, fewer than it had earlier anticipated.

1,508

That’s what number of factors the Dow Jones Industrial Common rose by the day after Election Day, as traders made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White Home will imply for the financial system and the world. The extra broadly adopted S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its finest day in practically two years. Other than bitcoin, shares of banks and smaller winners had been additionally perceived to be large winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s insurance policies might additionally ship inflation larger.

$100,000

The extent that bitcoin topped to set a report above $108,000 this previous month. It has been climbing as rates of interest come down, and it bought a very large increase following Trump’s election. He is circled and develop into a fan of crypto, and he is named a former regulator who’s seen as pleasant to digital currencies as the subsequent chair of the Securities and Alternate Fee, changing somebody who critics stated was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was under $17,000 simply two years in the past following the collapse of crypto alternate FTX.

26.7%

Gold’s rise for the yr, because it additionally hit data and had as sturdy a run as U.S. shares. Wars around the globe have helped drive demand for investments seen as protected, akin to gold. It is also benefited from the Fed’s reduce to rates of interest. When bonds are paying much less in curiosity, they draw back fewer potential consumers from gold, which pays traders nothing.

$420

It is a favourite variety of Elon Musk, and it is also a threshold that Tesla’s inventory worth handed in December because it set a report. The quantity has an extended historical past amongst marijuana devotees, and Musk famously stated in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla non-public at $420 per share. Tesla soared this yr, up from lower than $250 in the beginning, partly due to expectations that Musk’s shut relationship with Trump may gain advantage the corporate.

$91.2 billion

That is how a lot income Nvidia made within the 9 months by way of Oct. 27, displaying how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of money. Nvidia’s chips are driving a lot of the transfer into AI, and its income by way of the final 9 months catapulted from lower than $39 billion the yr earlier than. Such progress has boosted Nvidia’s value to greater than $3 trillion in complete.

74%

GameStop’s acquire on Could 13 after Keith Gill, higher referred to as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared on-line for the primary time in three years to help the online game retailer’s inventory, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights through the “ meme inventory craze ” in 2021. A number of different meme shares additionally jumped following his put up in Could on the social platform X, together with AMC Leisure. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake within the on-line pet merchandise retailer Chewy, however he offered all of his holdings by late October.

1.6%, 3.0% and three.1%

That is how a lot the U.S. financial system grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted charges, in every of the three first quarters of this yr. Such progress blew previous what many pessimists had been anticipating when inflation was topping 9% in the summertime of 2022. The worry was that the drugs prescribed by the Fed to beat excessive inflation — excessive rates of interest — would create a recession. Households on the decrease finish of the revenue spectrum particularly are feeling ache now, as they deal with still-high costs. However the general financial system has remained remarkably resilient.

20.1%

That is the emptiness charge for U.S. workplace buildings — an all-time excessive — by way of the primary three quarters of 2024, in keeping with information from Moody’s. The very fact the speed held regular for many of the yr was one thing of a win for workplace constructing homeowners, on condition that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% within the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for workplace area weakened because the pandemic led to the popularization of distant work.

3.73 million

That is the entire variety of beforehand occupied houses offered nationally by way of the primary 11 months of 2024. Gross sales must surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024’s dwelling gross sales to match the 4.09 million present houses offered in 2023, a virtually 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a gross sales droop courting again to 2022, when mortgage charges started to climb from pandemic-era lows. A scarcity of houses on the market and elevated mortgage charges have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.