Magnificent 7 Stocks and How They Move the S&P 500

In finance, the “Magnificent 7” refers to a group of seven mega-cap US tech company stocks that drive a large share of the market gains. All of these are high-performing stocks from the technology sector.

The moniker is derived from the 1960 Western film “The Magnificent Seven,” which depicts a powerful group of seven gunfighters.

In the stock market, the Magnificent 7 comprises Apple (AAPL +0.58%), Microsoft (MSFT -2.74%), Alphabet (GOOG +1.02%), Amazon (AMZN +1.69%), Nvidia (NVDA -0.66%), Meta Platforms (META -2.65%), and Tesla (TSLA +1.41%). All of these stocks are part of the high-performing S&P 500 index, which is used to gauge the performance of the market as well as the American economy.

While the stock market index tracks the stock performance of 500 leading companies listed on stock exchanges in the US, covering approximately 80% of available market capitalization, the Magnificent 7 have an outsized impact on the S&P 500.

This is because of the size of these companies, which drives substantial economic growth through innovation in technology. As of November 2025, the Magnificent Seven stocks have a combined market cap of $21.2 trillion, representing 36.2% of the S&P 500’s total market cap.

Also, the growth of their stocks over the past decade has outpaced the S&P 500 and, as a result, has drawn increased attention from investors, which has made them even bigger.

For instance, the YTD returns of Magnificent Seven have been just over 19% while its one-year performance has been positive 26.41% compared to the S&P 500’s 12.93% and 12.25% gains, respectively. 

The thing is, investors are always trying to group stocks offering the greatest growth potential, and when such groupings become popular, they often get a nickname. Also, they are not official indexes and tend to evolve over time.

Take FAANG, for example. Up until a few years ago, FAANG was the most popular one, which is an acronym for the shares of five major American tech giants: Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet (formerly Google). It was coined in 2013, with an extra “A” for Apple added in 2017.

Now, the Magnificent Seven is leading market interest and gains, representing the most influential companies in the US stock market and modern tech. These stocks are the leaders in artificial intelligence, cloud, social media, electric vehicles, hardware, software development, and semiconductors.

These companies are also known for their financial strength, which supports their upward trajectory. Combined with their significant market share, this means they are largely insulated from competition. 

Moreover, they run global operations, which positions them for international growth but at the same time makes them vulnerable to regulatory, economic, and geopolitical developments.

Now, let’s take a deeper look into the Magnificent Seven companies and understand just what makes them so valuable.
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What Are the Magnificent 7 Stocks?

1. Apple (AAPL): The Ecosystem Powerhouse

Among the Magnificent 7, Apple was the first one to go public in 1980. It was also the first one to cross the $1 trillion market cap in 2018.

Today, Apple is the second-most valuable company with a market cap of $4 trillion, having been dethroned from the first position by Nvidia. Combined with co-founder Steve Jobs not at the helm and Apple facing increasing competition in the smartphone market, some are wondering whether the company can keep the momentum going, or will it continue to lose its footing. 

For now, though, Apple is maintaining a positive pattern of successful solutions leading to more success, driven by innovation, product design, and performance, expanding profit margins, and customer loyalty.

While the company still makes computers as it did in its early days, since then, it has moved into phones, tablets, smartwatches, and headsets. From the iPod to the iPhone and the Apple Watch, these products are immensely popular among their users, surpassing 2.35 billion globally in early 2025.

To its followers, the Apple brand is associated with luxury, which has consumers paying a premium for this symbol of status and driving the company’s profits.

In the recent quarter, the tech giant posted a revenue of $102.5 billion. Notably, Apple had a quarterly record revenue of $49 billion for the iPhone segment due to strong demand for its new lineup: iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, and iPhone Air, despite the company struggling with supply constraints.

“Thanks to our very high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, our installed base of active devices also reached a new all-time high across all product categories and geographic segments.”

– Apple’s CFO Kevan Parekh

In addition to recurring revenue through a massive ecosystem lock-in, Apple has been seeing massive growth in services.

The company achieved an all-time revenue record of $28.8 billion for Services, which refers to Apple’s collection of online and subscription-based offerings, along with hardware and software support and repair.

The tech giant is also moving to take advantage of booming AI mania, for which it is increasing CapEx related to AI investments, building a private cloud compute environment, and developing Apple Foundation models.

“We are integrating AI capabilities across our products to enhance user experiences.“

– CEO Tim Cook

All of these factors have helped AAPL shares rise 7.24% YTD, trading at $269.63, having an EPS (TTM) of 7.43, and a P/E (TTM) of 36.16. It pays a dividend yield of 0.39%.

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2. Microsoft (MSFT): The AI and Cloud Leader

As the third-largest company with a market cap of $3.6 trillion, Microsoft continues to maintain its position, though it’s gaining ground on Apple. Its shares are currently trading at $490.80, up 15.35% YTD, having an EPS (TTM) of 14.06 and a P/E (TTM) of 34.59.

This positive performance and the inclusion in the Magnificent Seven are driven by Microsoft’s dominance in the cloud.

Its cloud computing platform, Microsoft Azure, provides a broad range of services, including compute, analytics, storage, and networking, and holds the second-highest share in the market at about 22%. In addition to other cloud services, Microsoft provides SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs).

For its most recent quarter, the tech giant reported a strong 40% jump in its Azure cloud business, which competes with AWS and Google Cloud. This Cloud growth has been due to the AI boom, with the company revealing that it has spent $34.9 billion in capital expenditures to build out the necessary infrastructure to support the massive AI demand.

“Our planet-scale cloud and AI factory, together with Copilots across high-value domains, is driving broad diffusion and real-world impact. It’s why we continue to increase our investments in AI across both capital and talent to meet the massive opportunity ahead.”

– CEO Satya Nadella

Notably, Microsoft is a long-time backer of OpenAI, which recently gave it a 27% ownership stake worth about $135 billion after nearly a year-long negotiation, which will allow the ChatGPT maker to become a for-profit business.

The owner of LinkedIn and GitHub is also behind computer software that many people use at home and in the workplace.

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3. Alphabet (GOOGL): Search, Ads, and AI

Launched nearly three decades ago, Google continues to dominate global search still. It actually holds 90%+ of the global search market share. It is by constantly adapting to user habits and making advances in technology that Google has been able to capture and control what information billions of people get. 

There are other tactics at play, too. For instance, Google pays Apple about $20 billion a year to set Google Search as the default search engine in its Safari browser. And that’s critical because users stick with Google. After all, they never explore other options, and when they do, they stick to them too.

While the rise of AI is presenting a threat to Google, the company has yet to lose its share. Also, the tech giant is taking its own measures to counteract that, like testing AI mode features in Google Search.

Then there’s DeepMind, the AI research lab, where Google is working on advanced AI models. Google’s very own AI model, Gemini, meanwhile, boasts over 650 million monthly active users, though it’s far behind ChatGPT’s 800 million users per week.

Besides Search, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is also known for several other products and services, including Chrome, Android, YouTube, Google Maps, Fitbit, Waymo, and Verily, as well as tools like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Meet.

Its Q3 2025 results show that Alphabet products continue to be extensively adopted. The company posted a record revenue of $102.35 billion during this period, which included $56.56 billion from the search business, $10.26 billion from YouTube advertising, and $15.15 billion from Cloud. 

The company provides cloud services through the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which has captured a nice 12% market share.

Thanks to strong demand for AI, Alphabet has been seeing solid momentum in its cloud business and, as a result, is planning to increase its capital expenditures to up to $93 billion. These funds will be used to build the infrastructure to handle the backlog, which has ballooned to $155 billion.

Amidst this growth, Google was fined $3.45 billion by EU regulators for violating antitrust rules in its advertising business, which yielded the company $74.18 billion in revenue in Q3. They found the tech giant abusing its dominant market position by favoring its own ad services.

Among the Magnificent 7, GOOG is the best performer this year, with its shares rallying 54.68% to now trade at almost $300. With that, it has an EPS (TTM) of 10.14 and a P/E (TTM) of 28.87. The company also pays a dividend yield of 0.29% to its shareholders.

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4. Amazon (AMZN): E-Commerce + AWS

Once a small online bookseller, Jeff Bezos-founded Amazon has since become the world’s biggest online retailer. What makes Amazon so valuable is not just its scale but also its logistics power, financial position, and expansion, which have helped it attain a $2.3 trillion market capitalization.

Trading at just under $227, AMZN shares are up only 1.5% this year, trailing their Magnificent Seven peers. Since the beginning of 2023, though, it has seen a 174% increase, trading around $80, and a decade ago, its shares were about $25.

During this period, Amazon has expanded its presence into other industries, now offering a streaming service, a supermarket chain, and a robotaxis service. 

Besides Amazon Prime, Whole Foods, and Zoox, its other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Kuiper Systems. Amazon also distributes digital content through MGM+, Amazon Music, and Audible, while Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, and Fire tablets and TVs are the consumer electronics it produces.

This way, the retail giant diversifies its revenue streams and stays ahead of the competition.

There’s yet another business segment of Amazon, the most profitable and rapidly growing one, and that’s AWS. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers cloud computing services to businesses, academic institutions, and government agencies, enabling them to scale cost-effectively.

AWS is actually the market leader in the cloud space, holding the largest share at about 30%.

Revenue in its cloud unit jumped 20.2% during 3Q25, coming in at $33 billion, with CEO Andy Jassy noting that AWS is “growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022“ thanks to robust AI demand. “We continue to see strong demand in AI and core infrastructure, and we’ve been focused on accelerating capacity — adding more than 3.8 gigawatts in the past 12 months,“ he added.

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5. Nvidia (NVDA): The AI Chip King

Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of $4.5 trillion, which surpassed $5 trillion last month as its shares hit $212 high. As of writing this, NVDA shares are trading at $195.5, up 38.9% YTD and a whopping 1,464% in the last five years.

These massive gains are driven by the AI craze, which has created immense global demand for the company’s high-performance chips and data center products. It counts other tech giants, viz. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle (ORCL +0.8%) are customers. In fact, Nvidia’s chips are used by most of the leading tech companies to develop their own AI models.

In October, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia has $500 billion in orders for its AI chips, with the company’s CFO Colette Kress saying recently that “the number will grow.“ 

Nvidia is a clear leader in GPUs that power not just AI but also gaming and high-performance computing. There is simply no other company that matches their AI hardware moat.

The biggest growth engine in the AI revolution, Nvidia’s earnings reflect this position with its third-quarter revenue topping analyst expectations. The company’s revenue came in at $57.01 billion while its net income surged by 65% to $31.91 billion, or $1.30 per share.

The company noted that its second-generation Blackwell Ultra chip is the best-selling chip. These chips are specially designed for massive AI and machine learning workloads, offering significant improvements in speed, efficiency, and scalability. 

Geopolitical issues, however, prevented the company from shipping current-generation Blackwell chips to China, where it is facing increasing competition, though it did get export licenses for the H20 chip.

Besides AI, Nvidia’s gaming segment is also growing, recording 30% year-over-year growth to post $4.3 billion in revenue. Similarly, it’s another legacy business, professional visualization, posted a 56% YoY increase in sales to $760 million. Robotics has also been highlighted as one of its most important growth areas. 

The AI chipmaker has provided stronger-than-expected sales guidance for the fourth quarter, projecting $65 billion in sales.

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6. Meta Platforms (META): Social Media + AI

The social media behemoth started out as Facebook but changed its name to Meta in 2021.

The new moniker was adopted to signify the company’s shifting focus to the metaverse, an immersive virtual world. With the combination of immersive tech and AI, the tech giant aims to create personalized and intuitive digital experiences through tools like augmented reality, VR environments, and advanced AI-driven content.

For this, Meta has developed Meta Quest devices and AI glasses, which have a built-in display and a complementary wristband with neural interface technology.

While the tech is being built, Meta already has an unmatched global user base (3.54 billion daily active people) through not just its social media app Facebook but also the photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp, which were acquired over a decade ago, providing the company with strong ad revenue. 

Meta’s solid financial position reveals a 26% increase in third-quarter sales. Its revenue for the period was $51.24 billion, but at the same time, the company has been spending a lot, primarily on data centre and cloud services, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting that this is because Meta consistently requires more computing power for its AI initiatives. He added:

“That suggests that being able to make a significantly larger investment here is very likely to be a profitable thing over some period.” 

Earlier this year, Meta launched its open-source Llama 4 software and added Vibes, a feed of AI-generated videos, to its Meta AI app. The company also has a Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), where research is ongoing to develop artificial superintelligence.

With a market cap of about $1.5 trillion, META shares are currently trading at $602, barely in the green this year at +0.82%. This makes META the second-worst performer among the Magnificent 7. Back in August, the company shares hit an all-time high (ATH) of $796.25.

Its EPS (TTM) is 29.07, and the P/E (TTM) is 20.31. The dividend yield offered to shareholders is 0.36%.

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7. Tesla (TSLA): EV Pioneer, But Facing New Competition

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s automaker is known for electric vehicles. Through its vertically integrated business model, it controls design, production, and sales of its product. Tesla also pioneered long-range batteries, introduced the advanced driver assistance system Autopilot, and provided a proprietary and convenient charging infrastructure for EVs through the Supercharger network.

In the most recent quarter, Tesla delivered a record 497,099 vehicles out of a total production of 447,450 vehicles, with deliveries through the first three quarters coming in at around 1.2 million.

As for the revenue, it increased by 12% to $28.10 billion, but net income fell 37% to $1.37 billion, or 39 cents per share, reflecting lower EV prices. The company also reported a 50% increase in operating expenses, which were in part due to AI and “other R&D projects.”

With the period coinciding with the expiration of federal tax credits for EVs, Tesla’s revenue from automotive regulatory credits fell 44% to $417 million.

Tesla is facing serious headwinds in the form of decreasing demand, slow progress of its Full Self Driving (FSD) system, and increasing competition not only from Chinese EV makers like BYD but also from established automakers like Volkswagen. The bullish counterpoint is the company aiming to start “volume production“ of Cybercab and heavy-duty electric Semi trucks next year, while the “first generation production lines“ of its general-purpose humanoid Optimus robots have already begun.

Besides EVs, Tesla also builds energy products, which include large backup batteries and solar photovoltaics (PV) that can power data centers. Revenue from its energy business jumped 44% in Q3 to $3.42 billion. Musk’s AI startup xAI is one of the big buyers of Tesla’s energy products.

With 0.04% YTD gains, as TSLA shares trade at $413, Musk’s automaker is the worst performer among the Magnificent 7, but its 3-month gains are still very much in the green by 24.73% and its yearly positive performance stands at +18.12%. Its EPS (TTM) is 1.44, and the P/E (TTM) is 280.10.

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Conclusion: Why the Magnificent 7 Shape the Market

So, these are the Magnificent Seven that are leading the tech that powers our daily lives.

As the largest companies in the world, they continue to grow thanks to their ability to make massive investments in research and development and in global expansion.

Together, these seven companies now hold a combined market cap of roughly $22 trillion, and because the S&P 500 is market-cap weighted, their size gives them an outsized influence on the index’s performance.

This lineup of the Magnificent Seven may evolve over time, but for now, these seven tech giants are leading and defining modern innovation.