How Long Can the ‘Magnificent Seven’ Stocks Hold the Line?

As in the eponymous 1960s Western, the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks keep on winning. This also means investors are betting the farm on just a handful of bullets hitting their targets.

The S&P 500 is in a bull market, fueled by soft inflation data in the U.S. and Europe and the widespread belief that interest rates will start coming down early next year. Yet the stock market has become so top-heavy that speaking of a “bull market” carries less meaning than before. Without Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta Platforms—the high-growth, technology-related companies that analysts have dubbed the “Magnificent Seven”—the S&P 500 would only be up 9% this year, rather than 19%. Some 44% of stocks in the index are down this year.