These 2 Stocks Have the Wind at Their Backs Going Into 2024. Here's Why Investors Should Buy Them Hand Over Fist.

The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs often referenced a popular quote by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: "I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been." As a technology innovator, Jobs needed to think one step ahead of his customers to create products they would love years down the road.

Investors have navigated some incredibly turbulent times in the stock market lately. They dealt with a once-in-a-century pandemic in 2020, a tech crash in 2022, and now a rapid rise in interest rates has set the market on edge. But with a brand new year right around the corner, Gretzky's wisdom might be as important as ever, because shifts in the economy will likely create corporate winners and losers.

Here are two stocks that should benefit from economic tailwinds in 2024. I'll explain why investors might want to buy them before the new year begins. 

1. Micron: Benefiting from a rebound in semiconductors

If investors looked at Nvidia stock this year -- with its 194% surge -- they would probably think the semiconductor sector was doing fantastically well. But artificial intelligence (AI) has masked substantial weakness in other critical parts of the industry, and Micron's (MU 2.92%) operating performance has been a reflection of that fragility.

The company is one of the world's biggest producers of memory (DRAM) and storage (NAND) chips, which are used in everything from smartphones to computers to data centers. Unfortunately, elevated inflation and rising interest rates have forced consumers to tighten their belts, which means they haven't bought as many big-ticket electronics over the last 12 months. 

That led to a substantial inventory glut for Micron, which destroyed the company's pricing power and led to a 49% plunge in its total revenue during fiscal 2023 (ended Aug. 31) to $15.5 billion. Chip companies need to sell their inventory fast -- it quickly becomes obsolete as the next generation of hardware hits the market, which means they have to slash prices dramatically when consumers aren't buying.

But there is some good news on the horizon. In prepared remarks to investors for the fourth quarter, Micron's CEO said both inventory and pricing have now bottomed, which means an upswing across the business is likely around the corner. Micron's guidance for the fiscal 2024 first quarter supports that, because it points to sequential revenue growth of 10%.

Plus, like Nvidia, Micron should benefit from AI going forward. It said fourth-quarter demand for traditional data center server products was soft, but it did see strength in AI-related hardware. Plus, its new D5 DRAM chip for data centers can deliver twice the bandwidth of its prior D4 chip, allowing CPUs to process large data sets more quickly.

Since AI development requires more memory and storage, newer chips are more powerful, and therefore more expensive. That could provide a broad lift to Micron's financials going forward.

Micron stock remains 28% below its all-time high. With a recovery expected across its core business combined with growing demand for AI-related hardware, this could be a great entry point for investors. 

2. Tenable: Saving companies trillions in cyber damage

Tenable (TENB 1.34%) is a leading provider of cybersecurity software, namely in the vulnerability management segment. It focuses on proactive protection designed to identify weaknesses in an organization's networks and hunt threats before they cause disruption. That will be an increasingly important part of the cybersecurity industry going forward. 

Tenable's Nessus vulnerability management platform is the most popular in the world, with over 2 million individual downloads. It's designed to actively scan cloud networks, operating systems, and endpoints (devices) for vulnerabilities, and it's incredibly accurate at detecting threats, generating the lowest rate of false positives in the industry.

Because of its broad penetration in the cybersecurity market, Nessus serves as an onramp to other Tenable software designed for specific industries. For example, the company says 82% of automotive manufacturers had previously experienced more than four hours of downtime over a 12-month period -- at a mind-boggling cost of $22,000 per minute! As a result, Tenable has designed a security suite for those businesses, which can ensure cyber attacks aren't the reason for a pause in operations. 

In this year's second quarter, Tenable increased its full-year revenue forecast to $791 million, which implies a steady growth rate of 15.7% compared to 2022. But the company is experiencing more strength from larger business customers with more complex requirements. In Q2, Tenable had 1,507 customers spending a minimum of $100,000 on its platform, which was up 26% year over year.

According to an estimate by consulting firm McKinsey & Company, cyber attacks will cause a whopping $10.5 trillion in damage per year by 2025. It says businesses should be spending around $2 trillion on cybersecurity per year to protect themselves, yet they're only on track to spend about $189 billion in 2023. That's a massive gap for providers like Tenable to fill.

With Tenable stock trading 27% below its all-time high, and an increasingly favorable industry outlook ahead, this might be a great chance for investors to buy in.