Meta Manages To Buck Marketwide Downturn, Stay in the Green By Remaining Market’s Defensive Mag7 Pick
With the market down in the dumps, not even the high-flying Magnificent 7 are offering any help. Tesla is down an astonishing 34% year-to-date, while Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet are down ~11%, making Microsoft’s 8% decline look excitable by contrast. But there is one 800 lb gorilla still standing, even despite the market’s darker shade — Meta.
- To start 2025, Meta rallied for a historic 20 consecutive days, marking the longest-lasting rally in the Nasdaq-100 since 1990 — it’s given up most of those gains but is still up 4% YTD.
- Its success has been credited to its defensive stance — still benefiting from AI optimism, better performance advertising targeting, and remaining unimpacted by tariffs or trade war drama.
Software company, meet hardware: Especially now, Meta’s unique strength is its software, but the company is spending big to gain a proprietary advantage in the burgeoning AI space. According to Reuters, the firm has begun testing its own in-house AI training chip, with the aim of reducing its dependence on Nvidia. The chip, expected to be built on TSMC’s 5nm node, is scheduled to enter mass production next year. It won’t be the only one, as their Mag7 competition are all pursuing AI chips of their own in a race continuing to heat up despite limited indications that the investments will pay for themselves.
