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))