Technology
Just 20 Stocks Have Driven S&P 500 Returns So Far in 2023
Just 20 Stocks Have Driven Most of S&P 500 Returns
Just 20 firms—mainly AI-related stocks—are propping up the S&P 500 and driving it into positive territory, signaling growing risk in the market.
The above graphic from Truman Du shows which stocks are making up the vast majority of S&P 500 returns amid AI market euphoria and broader market headwinds.
Big Tech Stock Rally
Tech and AI stocks have soared as ChatGPT became a household name in 2023.
The below table shows data from last month, highlighting that just a small collection of companies drove most of the action on the U.S. benchmark index.
Company Rank | Name | Contribution to S&P 500 Return | Average Weight |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Apple | 1.49% | 6.61% |
2 | Microsoft | 1.15% | 5.72% |
3 | NVIDIA | 1.00% | 1.62% |
4 | Meta | 0.66% | 1.15% |
5 | Amazon | 0.51% | 2.56% |
6 | Tesla | 0.50% | 1.39% |
7 | Alphabet (Class A Shares) | 0.34% | 1.72% |
8 | Alphabet (Class C Shares) | 0.31% | 1.53% |
9 | Salesforce | 0.19% | 0.51% |
10 | Advanced Micro Devices | 0.16% | 0.39% |
11 | General Electric | 0.10% | 0.28% |
12 | Visa | 0.10% | 1.08% |
13 | Broadcom | 0.09% | 0.73% |
14 | Intel | 0.09% | 0.35% |
15 | Walt Disney | 0.08% | 0.55% |
16 | Booking Holdings | 0.07% | 0.28% |
17 | Exxon Mobil | 0.06% | 1.37% |
18 | Netflix | 0.06% | 0.44% |
19 | Oracle | 0.06% | 0.40% |
20 | Adobe | 0.06% | 0.49% |
Top 20 Companies | 7.05% | 29.17% | |
S&P 500* | 7.55% | 100.00% |
*Based on the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF as of April 11, 2023. Source: Vanguard S&P500 ETF, Bloomberg.
Microsoft invested $10 billion into OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. It has also integrated generative AI into its search engine Bing. This large language model is designed specifically to make search capabilities faster, generate text, and perform other automations.
Also of interest is NVIDIA, which is the most valuable chipmaker in America. It sells $10,000 chips called A100s that allow machine learning models to run. These models perform multiple tasks simultaneously to develop neural networks and train AI systems, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Companies that are developing AI-related services, such as chatbots or image generation, may use up to thousands of these chips.
Despite being the world’s most valuable company and a key driver of returns, Apple is an outlier among tech giants with no major projects announced in AI (so far).
Implications of Market Divergence
The problem with the strong gains seen in a few select AI-related stocks is that it clouds wider stock market performance.
Without the AI-led rally, the S&P 500 would be returning -1.4%. as of May 17, 2023.
4. AI is fueling the stock market
A handful of stocks are spearheading the S&P 500's impressive 9% rally this year.
Here’s the kicker: if you excluded AI stocks, the S&P 500 would be down over 1% (according to Societe Generale). pic.twitter.com/SME1mJVpoW
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) May 22, 2023
This form of steep divergence, known as market breadth, often signals higher risk in the market.
When more companies experience positive returns it is less risky than a small handful seeing the majority of the gains. Today market breadth is very narrow, and these companies make up over 29% of the entire index’s market capitalization.
How long AI-related firms mask the broader performance of the S&P 500 remains to be seen. A growing number of market pressures, from higher interest rates to banking uncertainty could add further challenges.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Technology
Ranked: America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies
This graphic visualizes the market capitalizations of America’s 15 largest semiconductor companies.

Ranking America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies
As our world moves further into an era of widespread digitization, few industries can be considered as important as semiconductors.
These components are found in almost everything we use on a daily basis, and the ability to produce them domestically has become a topic of national security. For example, in 2022 the Biden administration announced the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to strengthen America’s position in everything from clean energy to artificial intelligence.
With this in mind, we’ve ranked the top 15 U.S. semiconductor companies by their market capitalizations.
Data and Highlights
The data we used to create this infographic is listed in the table below. Year-to-date (YTD) returns were included for additional context. Both metrics are as of May 30, 2023.
Rank | Company | Ticker | Market Cap (USD billions) | YTD Return |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | NVDA | $992 | 180.2% |
2 | Broadcom | AVGO | $335 | 45.1% |
3 | AMD | AMD | $202 | 95.7% |
4 | Texas Instruments | TXN | $160 | 8.2% |
5 | Qualcomm | QCOM | $129 | 8.2% |
6 | Intel | INTC | $125 | 12.2% |
7 | Applied Materials | AMAT | $115 | 41.2% |
8 | Analog Devices | ADI | $89 | 9.2% |
9 | Lam Research | LRCX | $85 | 52.1% |
10 | Micron Technology | MU | $78 | 42.3% |
11 | Snyopsys | SNPS | $71 | 45.4% |
12 | KLA | KLAC | $63 | 21.8% |
13 | Marvell Technology Group | MRVL | $54 | 76.2% |
14 | Microchip Technology | MCHP | $42 | 11.2% |
15 | ON Semiconductor | ON | $36 | 36.3% |
At the top is Nvidia, which became America’s newest $1 trillion company on Tuesday, May 30th. Shares pulled back slightly over the day and Nvidia closed at $992 billion. Over the past decade, Nvidia has transformed from a gaming-focused graphics card producer to a global leader in AI and data center chips.
In third and sixth place are two of America’s most well known chipmakers, AMD and Intel. These longtime rivals are moving in opposite trajectories, with AMD shares climbing 770% over the past five years, and Intel shares falling 47%. One reason for this is the data center segment, in which AMD appears to be stealing market share from Intel.
Further down the list we see Applied Materials in seventh, and Lam Research in ninth. Both firms specialize in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and thus play an important role in the industry’s supply chain.
Trade War Impacts
As tensions between the U.S. and China escalate, chipmakers are becoming increasingly entangled in geopolitical conflict.
In October 2022, the Biden administration introduced new export controls aimed at blocking China’s access to semiconductors produced with U.S. equipment. This impacted several companies in our top 15 list, including Lam Research and Applied Materials.
Shortly after the export controls were announced, Lam Research said it expected to lose upwards of $2.5 billion in annual revenues.
We lost some very profitable customers in the China region, and that’s going to persist, obviously.
– Doug Bettinger, CFO, Lam Research
In response, China announced in May 2023 that it would no longer allow America’s largest memory chipmaker, Micron, to sell its products to “critical national infrastructure operators”.
This is not the first time Micron has been involved in a controversy with China. In 2018, the firm alleged that Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, a Chinese state-owned company, had solicited a Micron employee to steal specifications for memory chips. The U.S. Department of Commerce imposed export restrictions on Fujian Jinhua as a result.
Chipmakers on both sides of the Pacific will be closely watching as competition between these two countries heats up.
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