A Federal Reserve rate-cutting campaign, a resilient economy and strong corporate earnings once again provided a solid backdrop for the stock market in 2024. After a stellar 2023, it was a great year for software growth stocks like Palantir Technologies and AppLovin after the composite S&P 500 and Nasdaq confirmed new upward trends in early November 2023 with one-day gains of more than 1.5% on higher volume. As usual, a new product or service drove big profit and revenue growth for many of the year’s winners.