In the two years since ChatGPT launched, stocks have reached new highs, mega-caps have exploded, and AI chipmaker Nvidia has become the second-largest stock in the United States by market value. But the biggest winner was actually a little-known Ohio-based cooling technology stock called Vertiv Holdings. Vertiv has benefited since the widely accessible chatbot launched in late November 2022, as investors scoured the market for secondary winners from building large language models and gargantuan data centers. The first order of attention was what became the megcap technology companies. Nvidia was the 13th largest company in the United States when the AI craze took off, notes the Jefferies business office. The S&P 500 has rallied about 49%. But while large-cap tech stocks have dominated investor attention since the dawn of mass-market AI, Jefferies highlighted Vertiv as one of the biggest winning stocks, up 861%. over the last two years. In 2023 alone, the stock has surged 165% and more than tripled in size since the start of 2024. Vertiv makes cooling equipment and infrastructure for the power-hungry data centers that are fueling the computing boom AI. Demand has increased as customers look for ways to manage all aspects of data center needs. VRT 1Y Mountain Shares Vertiv Over Last Year In an October interview with CNBC’s “The Exchange” following Vertiv’s latest earnings report, CEO Giordano Albertazzi defended the stock’s rise and highlighted why the The future still looks promising. “We believe we are in a very strong position to really capture the benefits – the acceleration in demand that AI is driving for the entire data center industry, and we are a leader in data center infrastructure data,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the future.” Nvidia is the second best performer, with shares up 722% since ChatGPT launched. Jensen Huang’s company has become the epitome of all things AI, with its graphics processing units supporting the technology’s big language models. Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom have also benefited from this trend, each growing 90% and 208% since the introduction of ChatGPT. So far in 2024, AMD is down about 4% while Broadcom is up 50%. NVDA Mountain 2022-12-02 Nvidia shares over the past two years As a group, Jefferies notes that shares of the Magnificent Seven (Nvidia plus Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet) have soared 203% while semiconductors have gained 77% over the past two years. Capital spending on artificial intelligence has outpaced the S&P 500 by 230%, according to the firm. Beyond Vertiv, Modine Manufacturing is another unsung AI winner. The air-cooling stock has rallied nearly 550% over the past two years and will more than double in 2024 alone. Jefferies also highlighted some AI losers, including several education technology platforms such as Chegg as well as call center companies, which are now considered threatened by the advent of AI. Intel also underperformed, with shares down 19%.
