• Magnificent 7 earnings endorse their relentless rally

• Tesla lags, while Apple shows some signs of weakness

• Valuations are stretched despite rosy projections

In their own world

The so-called Magnificent Seven group comprised of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla has gone parabolic since early 2023, outperforming the broader US stock market by a wide margin. The big tech clan has largely benefited from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) mania, while lately the expectation of declining interest rates and strong corporate fundamentals have been acting as additional tailwinds. However, the tech giants are not moving in a straight line due to their diverse business nature, with the Q4 earnings season highlighting a lot of their differences.

In 2024, Tesla has been largely underperforming the rest of the pack, while Apple is also in the red. Much of their weakness is attributed to a combination of poor earnings and the relative scarcity of AI initiatives in their business models.

On the other hand, Nvidia started the year where it left off, posting a whopping 45% gain year-to-date, while Meta exploded higher after better-than-expected Q4 earnings. Of course, Nvidia is the only one to have not yet reported among the group as its largely anticipated earnings announcement will take place on February 21.

Undoubtedly, the Magnificent 7 stocks have been the main driving force behind the consecutive all-time highs observed in the major US equity indices, but this overconcentration is starting to raise questions. Investors are becoming worried that the market is currently in a distorted stage, where just a very small proportion of the index is doing all the heavy lifting, while the vast majority is stagnating.

According to FactSet, the Magnificent 7 excluding Tesla are set to post a staggering 53.7% annual earnings growth in the fourth quarter of 2023, whereas the rest 496 constituents of the S&P 500 are on track for a 10.5% decline. On the bright side though, what used to be a potential growth level has turned into concrete evidence as AI-related firms have been delivering solid fundamental performance.

Under pressure to keep delivering results

Despite the optimistic growth forecasts, the Magnificent 7 stocks retain substantial premiums against the S&P 500. Again, Tesla is the outlier, trading at 59.3 times forward earnings even after the recent selloff, followed closely by Amazon whose forward P/E currently stands at 40.8x.

At the current stage, the Magnificent 7 stocks seem to be priced for perfection, leaving them vulnerable to downside risks in the case that they fail to live up to their growth expectations. Tesla’s post-earnings decline was an example of that, but the EV manufacturer does not have big exposure to AI, thus a domino effect was avoided.

If one of the more AI-tilted firms experiences a huge miss though, this could easily spill over to the rest of the group, ultimately delivering a huge blow to the broader market. Until now, the AI trend has not been put to the test under a dire macro environment as US economic data have repeatedly surprised to the upside.

Verdict

So far, the Magnificent 7 group has exhibited strong earnings momentum, which has propelled the US stock market to fresh record highs. The rally has been unsusceptible to rising Treasury yields, while the main volatility event on the horizon seems to be Nvidia’s earnings on February 21. Any disappointment there could be the beginning of a downside correction given Nvidia’s leading position in the AI sphere.