The booming 2024 market has created unprecedented wealth-building opportunities for professional and retail investors across the country.
To find out which states are earning the best returns in their portfolios, we surveyed 3,000 Americans about their market performance over the past year.
Here’s what the data showed:
Key Findings
The states that have made the most progress are listed in descending order:
- Hawaii – 32% return
- Alaska – yield 26%
- New York – yield 24%
- South Dakota – yield 24%
- Louisiana – yield 23%
- Oklahoma – yield 23%
- Idaho – yield 22%
- New Mexico – yield 22%
- Tennessee – yield 22%
- California – yield 21%
- Connecticut – yield 21%
- Delaware – yield 21%
- Florida – yield 21%
- Illinois – yield 21%
- Oregon – yield 21%
- Texas – yield 21%
- West Virginia – 21% yield
- Alabama – 20% refund
- Colorado – 20% refund
- Montana – 20% refund
- Nevada – 20% refund
- Rhode Island – 20% cash back
- Vermont – 20% refund
- Georgia – 19% return
- Massachusetts – yield 19%
- Missouri – yield 19%
- New Hampshire – yield 19%
- New Jersey – yield 19%
- Pennsylvania – yield 19%
- South Carolina – yield 19%
- Virginia – yield 19%
- Washington – yield 19%
- Arizona – yield 18%
- Iowa – yield 18%
- Minnesota – yield 18%
- Mississippi – yield 18%
- Nebraska – yield 18%
- North Carolina – yield 18%
- Ohio – yield 18%
- Kentucky – yield 17%
- Michigan – yield 17%
- North Dakota – yield 17%
- Arkansas – yield 16%
- Indiana – yield 16%
- Maine – yield 16%
- Maryland – yield 16%
- Utah – yield 16%
- Wyoming – yield 16%
- Kansas – yield 14%
- Wisconsin – yield 14%
Ensuring portfolio growth
In 2024, individual stocks became the backbone of people’s investing success last year, contributing a significant 34% to portfolio gains.
Cryptocurrency followed suit with 23%, indicating its importance in today’s diversified investment strategies.
Meanwhile, fixed income assets and ETFs/mutual funds also contributed to the growth, accounting for 19% and 15% of the gains, respectively.
This combination highlights the importance of balancing growth-oriented investments with stability-oriented investments.
Prospects for 2025
Investor confidence ahead of 2025 reflects varying levels of optimism driven by the region’s economic performance.
Hawaii leads the nation with a stellar 9/10 optimism score, riding the wave of its highest earnings in 2024.
In contrast, Alaska’s more cautious 6/10 rating underscores moderate expectations for states that saw more modest yield growth last year.
Overall, the average national optimism score of 6/10 suggests cautious hope amid potential future economic challenges and uncertainty.
Strategically leveraging benefits
Investors in 2024 have taken a pragmatic approach to their profits:
- 35% reinvested into their portfolio to fuel continued growth.
- 26% are focused on reducing debt
- 24% have created emergency funds
- 15% pursued personal goals (eg, vacation, home renovation).
Preparing for the road ahead
The investment community is closely monitoring emerging threats, with 35% of investors citing rising interest rates and inflation as their top concerns.
In addition, global economic uncertainty (27%) and market volatility (24%) remain key challenges.
These worries reflect the challenging financial environment that continues to shape strategies and sentiment heading into 2025.
Bottom line
As optimism for 2025 varies across regions, with Hawaii leading in confidence and Alaska showing caution, the national forecast reflects cautious but hopeful sentiment.
A smart approach to heading into the new year is to mix growth-oriented investments with stable ones.
This will allow investors to continue to profit from the portfolio while at the same time helping them build protection against market volatility and inflation.