Big Tech stocks are having another no good, very bad day. After sending the market to record highs in the first half of 2024, megacap tech names have been among the biggest losers in a global selloff that began in earnest last week and continued Monday.
The “Magnificent Seven”—a movie-inspired moniker that refers to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—became Wall Street’s hot catchphrase after the group accounted for half of the S&P 500’s total gains last year, according to a report from Morgan Stanley. Shares for all those companies were down at least 3% or more at close Monday, however, with the group losing more then $600 billion in collective market cap.
Even before weaker-than-expected data on the U.S. economy last week reignited recession fears on Wall Street, Big Tech stocks were cooling down. Investors—eyeing a potential Fed rate cut, which has yet to materialize—shifted some of their tech winnings to more value-oriented sectors in what the Wall Street Journal called “a stock-market rotation of historic proportions.”
Geopolitical tensions, meanwhile, have recently weighed heavily on chip stocks, including AI darling Nvidia. The chipmaker’s shares dropped 7% Monday, worst among the Magnificent Seven, but have still more than doubled year to date.
The tech behemoths had to blow out estimates for Q2 earnings calls, Baird’s Ted Mortonson previously told Fortune, to have any hope of quelling the selloff. That didn’t happen, with Amazon in particular missing on revenue and issuing a weak sales outlook last week.
Meanwhile, investors have heard a lot about the Magnificent Seven’s heavy investment in AI, but much less about how it will impact these companies’ top lines in the near term. Regulatory pressure has been ramping up, too, including a ruling from a federal judge on Monday that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over search on Android and Apple iPhone devices.
The biggest factor driving Big Tech’s losses on Monday, though, was a meltdown on Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, which carried over to U.S. markets at the opening bell. The markets made a partial recovery midday, but information technology overall ended 3.78% down at close, per Bloomberg, the worst of any sector.
Warren Buffett sells half his stake in Apple
Apple’s losses were in the spotlight after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed Saturday that it sold almost half its position in America’s largest company during the second quarter.
Like many analysts, Infrastructure Capital Advisors CEO Jay Hatfield emphasized that Buffett’s move was not cause for panic over Apple’s viability. Hatfield noted his firm, however, thought Apple was overvalued at its recent high above the $237 mark. The iPhone maker’s shares dropped almost 5% Monday to take the stock below the $210 mark.
That value problem was enough for the Oracle of Omaha to dump Apple’s stock—a move long anticipated by Berkshire analysts. It’s not, Hatfield said, an indictment of the U.S. economy.
“The notion that we’re going into recession because he sold Apple is patently ridiculous,” Hatfield said.
And even if an economic downturn does materialize, many analysts say Apple—and the rest of the Magnificent Seven—enjoy incredible market dominance and massive free cash flows that can make them relative safety nets for investors. Monday’s selloff doesn’t change that.
