There are no prizes for guessing what was the most bought stock of 2024: Nvidia, the hot US chipmaker delving deep into AI. Retail investors with UK brokers Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Interactive Investor ploughed more money into the tech giant than any other company last year.

But while US megacaps dominate the headlines, in the UK there are a bunch of quiet stalwarts on the stock market that, over the years, have weathered successive storms while persistently improving shareholder returns — and ought not to be overlooked. 

Take Relx, the data, analytics and publishing group. The company, which is beginning to use AI to expand its services, has consistently outperformed the UK market. Its market value is about ￡70bn. The shares are up 18 per cent in a year and pretty much twice what they were five years ago.