In 2024, the Magnificent 7 was the only game in town for American investors — representing most of the index gains and making up a record share of Americans’ portfolios. Then came April 2025, which took a wrecking ball to its prospects as Wall Street’s most popular trade.
These days, finance folk are buying gold — a trend fitting for today’s global uncertainty. And uninspiring earnings from Tesla and antitrust concerns overshadowing an otherwise strong showing from Google parent Alphabet haven’t helped the Mag7. Now, it’s up to the others to prove there’s still something “magnificent” left to buy.
The Rooster comes to roost: On Wednesday, Meta and Microsoft reported strong earnings, catapulting both stocks more than 6% higher in after-hours trading. They rose for different reasons — Microsoft, for its robust cloud growth; Meta, for better-than-expected ad revenue. And despite the usual economic commentary we’ve grown accustomed to in recent weeks, both companies maintained their outlooks in the face of antitrust jitters, European regulations, and residual worries about AI data center spending.
- Microsoft saw growth in every part of its business — including 33% growth from its Azure Cloud — with sales climbing 13% year-over-year to $70.07B (vs. $68.42B expected) and net income jumping 18% to $25.8B ($3.46 per share vs. $3.22 expected).
- Meta, which makes almost all of its revenue from advertising, saw sales rise 16% YoY to $42.3B (vs. $41.4B expected), with net income soaring 35% to $16.64B ($6.43 per share vs. $5.28 expected).
The Mag-mentum
Meta and Microsoft’s strong results might help clear the air for the Mag7, which is still down more than 15% YTD (compared with the Nasdaq Composite’s 9.5% decline). But Amazon and Apple will need to keep the Mag-mentum going as they report earnings today — and two As are not a given.
- Both companies are more sensitive to this administration’s economic policies — including aggressive tariffs on China, a key supplier.
- So their results might not shine like the software-centric Microsoft and Meta, providing greater color on whether or not the Mag-mentum can really last.
Who’s Mag enough? Once the dust settles this week, we’ll be on the lookout for earnings from Nvidia to round out the Mag7. Then, we’ll be revisiting the reports from these tech-tacular firms — and evaluating whether 2024’s most popular trade is due for a makeover.
