The five most popular U.S. stocks of the year are out. Which ones could be the "codes to financial freedom" in 2025?

Years later, when investors look back at 2024, they will inevitably think of those stocks that thrived in the booming artificial intelligence wave, as well as those that, despite riding the AI trend, unexpectedly plummeted due to specific issues within the companies.

Investors who are fond of U.S. tech stocks will have a deeper impression of 2024, a year when the bullish sentiment around "AI trading" became increasingly frenzied. Major tech giants and high-weight index stocks like NVIDIA (NVDA.US) and Meta Platforms (META.US) led the S&P 500 index to significant gains for two consecutive years, consistently pushing the benchmark index to new highs.

In addition to the large tech giants, there were many other types of popular stock trades. With massive investments in artificial intelligence from tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, not only did the stock prices of AI infrastructure suppliers such as AI chips, data center networking equipment, power equipment, and server manufacturers soar, but it also boosted the stock prices of software companies focusing on AI applications and power giants providing substantial electricity support for data centers—such as Vistra (VST.US). Even tech companies with a large amount of data for developing AI large models saw their stock prices surge—like Reddit (RDDT.US), known as the "American version of Tieba."

Scott Yusak, Managing Director of the Equity Strategy Department at Truist Advisory Services, stated: "Those tech companies that are not among the first beneficiaries of the AI boom, like NVIDIA and TSMC, are beginning to see performance and stock prices grow together. Currently, artificial intelligence is a key area of interest in tech stocks, but we expect that by 2025, tech stocks will have a broader range of stock performance compared to the past few years, with some tech companies outside of the large tech giants and chip stocks also showing very impressive performance."

This year, the tech stock market in the U.S. also witnessed many dramatic events reminiscent of Hollywood movies. One of the most popular AI hardware companies and a super bull stock of 2023, Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US), saw its stock price plummet due to serious accounting issues, even threatening its ability to trade normally on the U.S. stock market.

A veteran chip giant from the U.S.—Intel (INTC.US)—also benefited from the AI boom, but compared to its long-term competitors NVIDIA and AMD, it can be considered the biggest loser in the AI arms race. Most critically, the company's plan to turn losses into profits faced significant setbacks, and the continuous deterioration of its fundamentals led to a sharp decline in stock prices, ultimately forcing its CEO to resign.

The following is a summary of the five stocks that are the hottest in trading on the U.S. stock market and frequently appear in financial media headlines, based on the general views of Wall Street analysts, along with an outlook on the stock price trends for each in 2025. From the performance of stock prices in 2024, Reddit, Palantir, and Vistra saw their stock prices soar due to the large-scale expansion of AI-related businesses; Intel and Super Micro Computer experienced frequent stock price declines due to specific company issues.Reddit

The social media company Reddit, known as the "American version of Tieba," received a warm welcome from global investors during its initial public offering in March, but few anticipated that the investment returns since the IPO could reach such a crazy level.

Since its listing, the stock price of this social media network owner has surged an astonishing 382%, partly due to licensing agreements for training data signed with AI leaders like OpenAI and Google, which utilize Reddit's vast exclusive proprietary data resources to train their large language models. Coupled with Reddit's ongoing targeted investments to better monetize its user base, this has contributed to an incredibly strong quarterly performance report and outlook in October, driving the company's stock price to continue soaring.

According to a recent research report by Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Novak, Reddit's stock price performance over the past six months has far outpaced Meta and other social media peers, and there is still significant room for growth in 2025. Earlier this month, he upgraded the stock rating to "Overweight," stating that the training agreements with AI leaders, increased user engagement, and advertising initiatives will continue to drive performance and stock price growth.

Morgan Stanley raised its 12-month target price for Reddit from Wall Street's lowest target price to nearly quadruple Wall Street's highest target price, increasing it to $200. In contrast, Reddit's stock price closed at $163.720 on Thursday. Morgan Stanley wrote in this bullish report: "Our pessimistic stance on Reddit so far this year has been wrong." "But as we look to 2025, we believe we have not completely missed out on this rapidly scaling platform that is rolling out a series of user interaction models and new advertising plans."

Statistics show that the social media company Reddit had its best monthly performance in October, with an increase of up to 81%, as Reddit's performance and outlook significantly exceeded expectations, indicating that its investments in advertising technology are yielding positive returns, and Reddit's large-scale high-value user-generated content provides a rich data source for AI leaders like Google and OpenAI to train large language models, which is also a significant source of the company's performance growth.

Reddit has achieved a substantial increase in profitability through diversified revenue sources (such as AI training data licensing and advertising business) and user growth. Additionally, various generative AI applications on the Reddit platform not only greatly enhance the experience and loyalty of Reddit users but also open up new revenue channels, significantly strengthening the company's fundamental stabilityPalantir Technologies

Currently, very few software companies can sustain over 50% high growth in sales from artificial intelligence services, but Palantir (PLTR.US) is a typical exception. The incredibly strong demand from the U.S. government and major enterprises for its AI products, which are fully integrated with the Palantir data analysis ecosystem, has sparked a growth curve, with overall sales expected to grow by 26% in 2024, up from 17% the previous year.

In 2024, the company's stock price surged by 332%, with its market capitalization skyrocketing from $37 billion at the beginning of the year to nearly $170 billion currently. Next week, this tech stock will officially join the Nasdaq-100 Index. This means that the "AI super bull stock" Palantir will officially enter the stock coverage of the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ.US), which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index and is highly favored by global investors.

Focusing on "AI + data analysis," the data software giant Palantir's third-quarter revenue significantly exceeded analyst expectations, and it raised its revenue outlook for the period, mainly due to the increasing demand from the U.S. federal government and enterprises for its generative AI-based application software. Palantir's Q3 revenue reached $726 million, a year-on-year increase of 30%, far exceeding expectations, with net profit nearly doubling to set a new record for the company; more importantly, Palantir expects U.S. commercial revenue to grow by over 50% in 2024.

Palantir's generative AI platform "AIP" is fully integrated with Palantir's existing data analysis software ecosystem, allowing customers to invoke Palantir's core modules and functions through simple Q&A, enabling organizations to effectively apply generative artificial intelligence to data analysis, enhancing insights and operational efficiency. The platform supports a range of AI technology-driven applications, from automated management of material shortages, logistics and supply chain optimization to predictive maintenance and threat detection in complex computing scenarios.

Despite the stock's skyrocketing price this year, some Wall Street analysts hold a very cautious attitude towards the stock, but the Wedbush analyst team believes that as expectations for performance growth driven by artificial intelligence heat up significantly, the stock will bring larger-scale investment returns by 2025.

According to analyst statistics compiled by Bloomberg, Palantir's price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 150x, making it the second most expensive stock in the S&P 500 Index, second only to Ventas. Among the 22 Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg, only three have given Palantir a "buy" rating, highlighting Wall Street's cautious stance towards Palantir, which has repeatedly set new highs in stock priceVistra

With the global surge of artificial intelligence applications like ChatGPT, the energy demand of data centers worldwide has become so immense that this year, some utility stocks that have long been overlooked by the market have caught the attention of top investment institutions on Wall Street. The accelerating demand for AI computing power closely related to AI training/inference is expected to lead to a continued surge in the power resource demand of data centers, which are already known as "power-hungry giants," in the coming years.

The exponential expansion of high-energy-consuming AI data centers driven by the fierce demand for AI chips is fundamentally reliant on power supply, which is the origin of the market view that "the end of AI is electricity."

According to forecasts from Boston Consulting Group, the share of electricity consumption by data centers in the United States is expected to double, increasing from 126 terawatt-hours in 2022 to 390 terawatt-hours by 2030. Terawatt-hours are used to describe the largest levels of electricity consumption, typically used in national energy statistics and the planning and assessment of large energy projects. Large industrial facilities, such as super steel mills, may consume less than 10 terawatt-hours of electricity in a year.

Vistra Corp., a U.S. electricity producer, is the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 index for 2024, with a rise of 256%, even surpassing Nvidia's increase of 164% so far this year. Palantir, which has seen even stronger growth, was only added to the S&P 500 index in September.

Vistra's revenue has significantly increased since 2024 due to the massive electricity consumption of data centers. As some government agencies and U.S. tech giants commit to investing more in the AI sector next year, particularly in building and expanding energy-intensive data centers, the outlook for power and other infrastructure providers appears very optimistic. Data centers are arguably the most critical large infrastructure projects of the AI era, essential for the efficient operation of generative AI applications like ChatGPT and the updates of large AI models such as GPT-4o.

According to the latest forecast data from Wall Street financial giant Citigroup, by 2025, the capital expenditures related to data centers of the four largest tech giants in the U.S. are expected to grow by at least 40% year-on-year. These massive capital expenditures are primarily linked to generative AI, indicating that the computing power demand for AI applications like ChatGPT remains substantial. The Citigroup analysis team emphasizes that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is still in the early to mid-stage, especially driven by the hot AI application of "AI agents" on the enterprise side, leading to a surge in demand for AI applications and consequently a strong demand for computing resources, stimulating tech giants to significantly expand and build new global data centersVistra and its utility peer Constellation Energy Corp (CEG.US) stand out among U.S. utility companies because they are positioned as independent power producers, meaning they sell electricity at market prices, which is in stark contrast to some government-regulated utility companies in the U.S.

Intel

As we enter 2024, the optimism among chip stock investors has boosted Intel Corporation's stock price, as they believe that the struggling legacy chip manufacturer will see a complete turnaround in its operations due to improvements in its chip foundry business and the growth of AI PC penetration. However, this bet has proven to be a significant mistake this year; while the chip foundry business and AI PCs may eventually lead Intel out of the mire, it will certainly not be this year.

Intel's stock price has fallen 62% year-to-date, further lagging behind competitors in the PC and data center chip sectors such as Nvidia and AMD, while facing increasing costs associated with building new factories and investing in 2nm and below chip production technologies. In August, the company finally succumbed to the long-standing cash burn pressure of its chip foundry business, suspending the dividend it had maintained since 1992 and announcing a layoff plan of up to 15,000 employees. CEO Pat Gelsinger was forced to resign earlier this month.

During the board's search for Gelsinger's permanent successor, Intel is being managed by two interim CEOs, and the lack of a core leader makes Intel's future path seem more uncertain than ever. Questions about whether the chip foundry strategy will change, particularly whether Intel will continue to pursue its ambitions to catch up with TSMC, the "king of chip foundry," and whether the company will consider a spin-off to alleviate its cash flow crisis, may remain unanswered in the coming months. Among over 50 Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg, only 7 recommend buying Intel stock.

Bullish analysts on Intel point out that the 18A high-end chip manufacturing process will be key to the future fate of Intel's chip foundry business. The "18A" and other A-series chip manufacturing categories refer to Intel's planned 1.8nm process chips as well as its roadmap for advanced 3D chiplet packaging technology. Intel senior executive Naga Chandrasekaran stated at an event hosted by UBS in early December that despite facing some technical issues and execution difficulties, several key milestones have been reached. "At this node, there are no substantive challenges. What remains is essentially overcoming yield challenges and defect density challenges."

In Intel's chip foundry plans, Intel will manufacture chips for any company, including long-time competitors Nvidia and AMD; Gelsinger had previously predicted that by 2030, Intel's chip foundry business would reach the second-largest scale globally, only slightly behind TSMC, the king of chip foundrySuper Micro Computer

Super Micro Computer Inc. still seems unstoppable in the first half of this year, as xAI, founded by Musk, and various leading AI companies continue to throw AI server orders at the company, with their data centers experiencing a surge in demand for AI servers.

Due to Super Micro Computer's long-standing close relationship with NVIDIA, the deeply integrated Super Micro Computer relies on its strong supply chain and long-term cooperation with NVIDIA, often able to secure larger shipments of NVIDIA AI GPUs. Additionally, Super Micro Computer has long been known in the industry for its customized server solutions. However, all of this took a dramatic turn in the second half of this year due to an accounting scandal, with NVIDIA even shifting its orders from Super Micro Computer to other server suppliers.

The company's stock peaked in March, and just days ago, it was included in the S&P 500 index, with a market capitalization reaching $66 billion. However, in August, the company became a target for well-known short-selling firms. A day later, the company postponed the release of its annual report citing internal control reviews, putting its listing status on NASDAQ in jeopardy. In October, its auditing firm unexpectedly resigned, leading to a sharp decline in stock price. Recently, the NASDAQ 100 index announced its annual component stock adjustment results, and Super Micro Computer was removed from the index.

Since hitting a historical stock price record in March, the company's stock price has now fallen by 74%. Super Micro Computer has promptly hired a new auditing firm to obtain an extension from NASDAQ and must now submit its financial report by February 25. Meanwhile, reports indicate that the company has hired top Wall Street investment bank Evercore to help raise funds