The S&P 500 has a new ‘tentpole stock’ – an issuer whose outsized return towers over the others when index members are ranked by their contribution to this year’s increase in market cap. Amazon and Apple have been tentpoles in the past, but the role is now performed by chipmaker Nvidia.

At the end of December, Nvidia’s market cap was $360 billion, making it the thirteenth largest company in the index. Since then, Nvidia has almost doubled in value, moving into sixth place. During that time, the total market cap of the index increased by $2 trillion, with Nvidia contributing more to that increase than any other company other than Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon. Including Meta/Facebook, these six stocks account for all of the S&P 500’s total market cap increase this year, as seen using our equity visualisation tool.

Nvidia’s standout performance comes from its position as the leading producer of graphical processing unit chips, particularly the high-end A100 models that have become a key commodity in the generative AI boom. How did this all begin?