🏆 Top Articles of 2024
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Welcome to the Free edition of How They Make Money.
Over 170,000 subscribers turn to us for business and investment insights.
Today, we revisit some of the most popular articles published by App Economy Insights in 2024.
I publish articles across two services:
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Timely quarterly updates on 70+ holdings.
Stock ratings (BUY, SELL, or HOLD).
It’s the last post of 2024. So, it’s time to reflect!
It’s been an incredible year for App Economy Insights:
We launched a PRO tier in July 2024.
198 articles published, including:
50 free posts on How They Make Money.
62 posts on How They Make Money Premium.
26 posts on How They Make Money PRO.
60 posts on App Economy Portfolio.
21 videos published on our YouTube Channel.
Over 100 million views across posts and social media.
Over 486,000 followers & subscribers across all our channels.
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I cannot say this enough. Your support means the world to me and allows me to do this full-time!
Before we start 2025, here are 10 of the most popular posts of 2024.
Best and worst investments of 2024
2024 was a great year to be an investor.
Chances are, you are pretty happy with your portfolio today. After a catastrophic 2022, the market rose over 20% in 2023 and 2024.
The S&P benchmark returned an average 10% annual return from 1926 to 2024, and 74% of the years were positive. The longer the time horizon, the higher the chance of positive returns. If you want to stack the deck in your favor, the easiest step by far is to trade less and ignore the doomsayers.
“Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.”
I share my stock portfolio with a community of long-term-focused investors. So I wanted to share the best and worst-performing investments this year:
Best investment:
Palantir (PLTR): In January, I wrote: “If AIP lives up to its potential, Palantir's financial performance could dramatically improve in the coming years. By harnessing network effects to drive new contracts and leveraging operational efficiencies for more software-like margins, the next few quarters are poised to reveal some significant insights. One thing is clear: this leadership team thinks the future looks bright.” The stock is up 400% since then, beating the S&P 500 by 377%.
Worst investment:
UiPath (PATH): I added to my position in April 2024, taking advantage of the low valuation, which had dropped well below its July 2020 Series E funding round. However, the market has remained cautious, and the stock is now down 30% since then. The initial plunge was triggered by management's decision in May to slash FY25 guidance, citing customer hesitancy in renewing contracts. While guidance has since been raised twice, lingering uncertainty—particularly whether AI will prove more disruptive than additive—continues to weigh on investor sentiment.
Plans for 2025
You can expect How They Make Money to expand even more in 2025.
What business or topic do you want to learn about? Let us know in the comments!
Thank you for tagging along!
I wish you and your family a wonderful 2025. ✨
That’s it for today!
Stay healthy and invest on!
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Author's Note (Bertrand here 👋🏼): The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are solely my own and should not be considered financial advice or any other organization's views.
Disclosure: I am long AMD, NVDA, PLTR, TSLA, and PATH in the App Economy Portfolio. I share my ratings (BUY, SELL, or HOLD) with App Economy Portfolio members here.