It was a pretty remarkable year in the world of high-tech: The shining light and path towards a world of abundance. 2024 marked the beginning of what Jeff Brown of Brownstone Research calls manifested AI. It is a good framework for how we think about this concept. It is that we humans will manifest artificial intelligence (AI) into forms that will be easy for us to understand and interface with and this is an unstoppable trend and it will be the key driver behind the gains in the NASDAQ in 2025.

The composite index rose an impressive 32% this year. The rise wasn’t across the entire market. The Magnificent Seven, Alphabet, NVIDIA, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and Meta had an outsized impact on the index returns for the year. A further rise was fueled by the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), which defined the year’s performance. And of those seven stocks, it was really NVIDIA, Tesla, and Meta – that drove the average returns of the seven of almost 70% this year.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT became a household name this year. Generative AI from various tech companies is now common in households and workplaces across all demographics and industries. Further, the rate at which AI technology is advancing is astonishing.

Microsoft has been closely linked to the success of OpenAI due to its “controlling” interest in the private company. Meta has developed one of the leading large language models (LLMs). NVIDIA has released its new Blackwell GPUs, which is an impressive jump in performance compared to last year’s model. And Tesla has not only manifested AI in the form of its latest self-driving cars, trucks, and now robotaxis and robovans using its full self-driving (FSD) software – version 13.2, It has also manifested AI in the form of its humanoid robot, Optimus, which will ultimately become a market larger than that of electric vehicles. The incredible investment in AI and the application of AI in businesses is what drove the best gains in the stock market. For reference, hundreds of billions of dollars were spent this year building “AI factories” – data centers designed to both train – and run – AI applications. This has driven outsized share price gains for the key companies powering this trend forward.

The energy required to power these AI factories is huge. The USA with its oil and natural gas reserves and commitment to nuclear energy is well placed to maintain its leadership in the AI space.

Nvidia (NVDA) is finishing up the year with a gain of about 183%. And several of Jeff’s recommendations in Exponential Tech Investor have done even better: AppLovin (APP) is up 732% for the year (and it was up as high as 935% in early December). Credo Technology (CRDO) is up 276% in 2024. Real Brokerage (REAX) has gained 206% this year. In addition, Vertiv (VRT) is up 152% this year. The bottom line is that the right AI stocks were the place to be in 2024.

A look at the video below reveals the big issue facing the USA in the years ahead: robots and AI replacing workers. Amazon was the first to introduce robots to replace workers in their warehouses and now Walmart, Costco, and others are following their lead. Also, imagine the impact driverless cars and trucks will have on jobs. 2025 will be a year of massive change and I am not including the spiritual battle that is coming to a final showdown between Jesus and Satan at the Battle of Armageddon.

In the next post we will take a look at what Jeff Brown thinks of 2025.