Magnificent Seven results: who were the winners and losers?

Big tech stocks, in particular the ‘Magnificent Seven’, have dominated the stock market for more than two years.

The group of seven have been among the most-bought stocks for most of that period.

At the start of 2023, the seven tech companies comprised approximately a fifth of the S&P 500. Two and a half years later, that has risen to around a third, as an artificial intelligence (AI) spending boom has propelled these big tech stocks.

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That dominance of the stock market means that even beginner investors will have a lot of exposure to these companies through stock market trackers. Those who don’t invest actively will still have a lot of money riding on the Magnificent Seven stocks through their pension.

But various events have threatened to shake their dominance so far this year.

The emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI platform that could outperform many Western models with seemingly lower compute costs, prompted double-digit declines in many Magnificent Seven share prices. Then, Donald Trump’s tariff war has put headwinds in place for these globally-connected businesses.

That has seen a divergence in performance for the seven companies that make up the Magnificent Seven. Nvidia and Microsoft have soared to unprecedented heights, but Tesla and Apple are in danger of lagging behind their rivals.

Six of the Magnificent Seven have now announced their results for the quarter to June 2025, and the narrative that these seven companies no longer move in lock-step with one another was reinforced.

AI is separating the winners from the losers, according to Kate Leaman, chief market analyst at AvaTrade.

“Big tech firms are leaning into AI, building faster, and most importantly still printing cash. There’s a lot to like here,” she said. “But this isn’t the free-money, zero-interest-rate world of old. Execution and strategy matters.”

What are the Magnificent Seven stocks?

The Magnificent Seven – often abbreviated to ‘Mag7’ – comprises seven big tech stocks that the investing community perceives as being the leading exponents of technology in general and artificial intelligence (AI) in particular.

They are:

• Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) – the parent company of Google, as well as other companies such as the AI developers DeepMind and Anthropic;
• Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) – originally an online bookstore, now a giant of e-commerce and, via Amazon Web Services (AWS), cloud computing;
• Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) – the tech hardware company that brought the world the MacBook and the iPhone;
• Meta (NASDAQ:META) – formerly Facebook, the company is now heavily focused on ‘Metaverse’ technology as well as AI products, like Llama model;
• Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – the computing giant behind the Windows operating system and the Azure cloud platform;
• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) – the hardware developer that pioneered GPUs, the chips that power AI data centres;
• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) – the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer that, according to CEO Elon Musk, is aiming to crack autonomous driving.

The term ‘Magnificent Seven’ was coined by Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett in 2023. By then, the group was already starting to dominate the stock market in the wake of the AI and tech stock mania that followed the public launch of ChatGPT in late November 2022.

While each company is distinct, there are some general similarities that apply to most, if not all, of the group.

All are (or at least have been) incredibly innovative; Apple’s products have revolutionised personal computing, Meta made social media mainstream, and Tesla has demonstrated the viability of EVs.

Most are also highly diversified. Even if a specific product made a company like Meta or Amazon famous, these megacap companies now have their fingers in all sorts of technological pies – favourites being cloud computing and, of course, AI.

All the companies in the group are involved in AI, albeit in different ways and to varying degrees (Apple, for example, has drawn criticism for failing to develop its own AI products as fast as its counterparts).

Their key similarity, though, is their stock market dominance. At the time of writing, they comprise seven of the world’s nine largest companies by market capitalisation. All have a market cap of over $1 trillion, except Tesla which currently sits just below at $976 billion. Some, such as Nvidia, are several times higher than this.

Magnificent Seven results

Six of the Magnificent Seven companies – all except Nvidia – have announced their results for the quarter to June 2025. But who were the winners and losers?

Alphabet

Google’s parent company delivered results that impressed without blowing away the market.

Alphabet delivered earnings per share (EPS) of $2.31, up 22% year-on-year, and revenue of $96.4 billion, beating analyst expectations on both fronts.

Google Cloud revenue was a particular highlight, growing 32% to $13.6 billion. Google Search revenue rose 11.7% to $54.19 billion, well ahead of analysts’ expectations and acting to reassure the market that Google’s core business line is still posting healthy growth despite rising competition from AI search.

Alphabet shares initially dipped when the results were released but ended after-hours trading up 2.3%.

Amazon

Amazon’s results disappointed investors, despite posting EPS of $1.68 compared to an expected $1.33.

While the company beat on earnings, revenue growth of 17.5% in Amazon Web Serves (AWS), the company’s key cloud division, lagged behind what rivals Google and Microsoft’s Azure had already posted.

Amazon’s share price fell more than 7% in after-hours trading following the results.

Apple

There had been pessimism surrounding Apple leading into the results. Once the world’s most valuable company, Apple has lagged behind its Magnificent Seven colleagues this year; its share price has fallen 19.2% in the year to 1 August.

Apple faces two dual challenges. Donald Trump’s isolationist trade policy is a severe threat to its globally interconnected supply chain. More damningly, there is a widespread market perception that it is well behind the curve on leveraging AI.

But Apple’s results gave some positivity. Apple’s shares gained around 2% in after-hours trading following their release.

Revenue of $94.0 billion represented 10% year-on-year growth and a record for Apple’s June quarter, while EPS rose 12% to $1.57, comfortably beating analyst expectations for both metrics.

“While the overall performance was solid, there were a few headwinds that muted the impact, particularly in China, which showed further signs of weakness,” said Ben Barringer, global technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot.

“On the positive side, Apple’s services division continues to perform well, growing 13% year-on-year and reinforcing its importance as a key driver of future growth.”

Meta

Of all the Magnificent Seven results announced in the latest round Meta’s saw the greatest share price reaction.

Meta’s stock jumped 12% in after-hours trading following a huge earnings beat. EPS increased 38% year-on-year to $7.14 – analysts having forecast $5.90 – as Meta’s big spending on AI appeared to deliver on bottom-line profitability.

“Meta is in somewhat of an AI sweet spot just now, offering services to both consumers and businesses,” said Barringer.

Microsoft

At the same time as Meta released its bumper results, Microsoft also wowed investors with EPS of $3.65 (up 24%) and revenue of $76.4 billion. The highlight was the growth in demand for Azure, its cloud computing platform, which rose 34% year-on-year.

“Microsoft had a monster quarter,” said Leaman. “Azure is still growing fast, and its overall cloud business is now pulling in $75 billion a year.”

Microsoft shares reached a high of $555.45 during the following session which was enough to push its market cap above $4 trillion for the first time in its history. But shares closed the session at $533.50, bringing it back below the threshold.

Nvidia

While Nvidia doesn’t announce its results until the end of August, its share price tends to react to other Magnificent Seven results. Most of the other members of the group are numbered among its largest customers – so metrics such as increased capex spending by other big tech firms tend to impact Nvidia’s share price.

Nvidia shares gained 1.7% on 24 July, following the announcement of Alphabet’s increased capex spend.

Nvidia’s share price fell following Microsoft’s earnings though – most likely due to investors having already priced in increased big tech capex, and the Trump tariff deadline that was looming.

Tesla

Tesla’s fundamentals were guaranteed to be poor long before the results were released, as the company announces its delivery numbers around three weeks before its full results.

So investors were already braced for the decline in sales (down 12% year-on-year to $22.5 billion) and EPS (down 23% to $0.40).

Tesla’s share price slumped in after-hours trading all the same.

CEO Elon Musk, usually renowned for his bullishness and ability to charm investors in the face of adversity, warned that the company could face several “rough quarters” as the incentives from Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate unwind.

Tesla’s stock has now fallen 25% in the year to 1 August 2025.

Is now the time to buy the Magnificent Seven?

The valuations of the Magnificent Seven go up and down, but many investors feel they are overvalued. Are the Magnificent Seven a good buy?

The answer of course depends on your personal circumstances, investment goals, and risk appetite, but before investing in big tech stocks it is worth remembering that their oversaturation in the stock market and strained valuations mean that they are relatively risky investments, despite the fact that they are big, established and highly profitable businesses.

The table below shows the price of these stocks relative to their earnings over the last 12 months (trailing) and analysts’ projections for the next 12 (forward).

^{Sources: *Wall Street analyst estimates via stockanalysis.com as of 1 August 2025, ^Birinyi Associates analysis via Wall Street Journal as of 1 August 2025.}

A degree of lustre has, on the whole, returned to the Magnificent Seven stocks following earnings season. All except Alphabet are trading above the average forward P/E of the S&P 500, while investors are also optimistic about Tesla, Microsoft and Amazon in relation to their earnings.

Value-focused investors may look favourably at Apple, Meta and Alphabet’s current valuations, being in-line with or below the average of the NASDAQ 100.