BUZZ-Big Tech investors cautious as smaller rivals vie for market share in 2024

** Shares of Meta Platforms META.O are seen ending the year with gains of about 67%, helped by its product monetizing efforts, while Microsoft is up ~13%, underperforming the Big Tech stocks on concerns about growth in its cloud business Azure

** Analysts have said the potential ban on ByteDance-owned TikTok next year would help Meta, as the social media platform Instagram could attract ad dollars

** Alphabet GOOGL.O, up ~37% this year, is facing several challenges as smaller rivals including OpenAI and Perplexity are aiming to upend the Android-owner's search market dominance

** GOOGL is also facing regulatory scrutiny; a U.S. judge in August ruled co had an illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising

** U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked Andrew Ferguson to chair the Federal Trade Commission, who will inherit a full slate of cases against Big Tech companies

** Apple AAPL.O up ~31%, buoyed by the addition of AI features to latest iPhone models, which analysts have said would drive strong refresh cycle, even as concerns about awareness for its "Apple Intelligence" loom

** Amazon.com AMZN.O up ~46% this year; co has been grappling with a strike at several facilities since Dec. 19

** S&P 500 Index .SPX up more than 23% this year - LSEG data

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru)

((Jaspreet.Singh@thomsonreuters.com ; https://twitter.com/i_jass))