Magnificent Seven Loses Importance as Soft Landing Means Risk On
- Big Tech outperformance cools as confidence in economy grows
- ‘They’re good hedges, even if they pause for a while’
Microsoft set an all-time high this year on optimism over AI and cloud growth.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The soft-landing scenario that investors see for next year points to further gains in US stocks. But it also dims the prospect of another stretch of wild outperformance for the technology giants that dominated in 2023.
One of the key themes behind the Magnificent Seven’s surge, which generated nearly two-thirds of the S&P 500 Index’s advance this year, appears to have faded in importance for investors: With recession fears swirling, the tech behemoths’ earnings growth, combined with robust cash flow and balance sheets, made them haven stocks.