The Magnificent 7 can‘t be said to have had a good run in this first quarter of 2025. On average these seven stellar companies suffered a 15% loss in their share prices YTD. Why? I’ll get into the specifics later, but the bottom line is that for all of them, perhaps with one exception, nothing on the fundamental side has changed, nor on the sentiment side, specific to these companies.
It is a broader sell-off that has been happening all across industries, sparked by DeepSeek, facilitated by tariff threats and exacerbated by uncertainty and disappointing data on the economic state of the USA. So let’s get into the specifics of the seven hyperscalers on this list and find out which are worth buying. A little foreshadowing: Most of them are.
I will go through them in order of their market cap by the close of March 28, 2025, starting with the largest.
Apple ($AAPL (-0,21%) )
Currently the largest company in the world, measured by market cap, Apple has quite a presence in the global market. It is inherently a hardware company with software integration in a smooth and seamless ecosystem. I mean who doesn’t own an iPhone, or at least one of Apple’s highly innovative products, but they are more than just accessible and comfortable, they are also a status symbol. Maybe not to the extent of a high-end fashion label, but people with Android-powered smartphones face the same question over and over again: Why wouldn’t you buy an iPhone?
And yes, Apple is a great company, a fabulous business, but there is not much innovation coming at the moment. The products are incredible and Apple has a standout position in the electronic devices market, but are you really willing to pay a forward P/E ratio of 30 in return for stagnating growth. I would say you can, Apple is a cash-producing machine, a money-making monster, but it lacks growth prospects at the moment, especially since there is no sign of AI monetization at this point in time, which is why I am not buying it at the current valuation.
Microsoft ($MSFT (-0,18%) )
Continuing with Microsoft, which is also a cash-producing machine with a free cash flow of $75 billion in 2024. Microsoft is investing massively in AI, most famously in OpenAI and its model ChatGPT, but it is also trying to implement its in-house model Copilot across its Office365 platform. The leadership is scaling up the capital expenditure massively with a reported $80 billion for the year 2025 to solidify Microsoft‘s position in the AI market.
The company‘s biggest strength is in its customer base, almost every single company in the world, has interacted with at least one program in the Office365 suite. It is truly ubiquitous. In school you are introduced to PowerPoint, that from which point onward you then use for every single presentation in your life. Texts are always written in Word, as I am doing this one now.
Excel is used for everything that has to do with numbers from managing your own finances to calculating the financing of your real estate holding to creating the most advanced financial models. Microsoft has a massive moat and its customers are just waiting for the full implementation of AI into these platforms, which is already taking place to some extent.
Another aspect of Microsoft can also not be forgotten and that is its cloud business Azure. It currently occupies the second spot in the three-way race, led by AWS, but is attractive to companies already reliant on Microsoft’s services and is predicted to reach the $200 billion mark in revenue by 2028.
I think Microsoft is quite attractively valued with a forward P/E of 29 with a projected growth exceeding 10% a year, while getting a basically recession-resistant business model with a loyal, never declining, customer base and massive upscale potential for AI implementation.
Nvidia ($NVDA (-0,89%) )
After being overtaken by Microsoft for the second place in the ranking of the largest companies in the world Nvidia currently sits in third. Nvidia is the AI market leader, way ahead of its supposed competition like AMD. All the CapEx spending of the hyperscalers is concentrated on Nvidia, this company is another one that can be said to be omnipresent.
If you look a few years back, Nvidia was mostly known to gamers for their high-quality GPUs, but since the start of the AI revolution the stock has really taken off and the true potential of Nvidia products has come to light.
And while these massive AI infrastructure spending is focusing on Nvidia, they don’t seem to disappoint with new products, like the highly capable Blackwell chips. At the head of this great company, a visionary man leads the way. Jensen Huang is one of the most successful Silicon Valley CEOs out there, with the appeal of a rock star.
I think Nvidia could be a generational buying opportunity and I believe in Jensen Huang’s vision for the future, especially with new partnerships with major players like GM for autonomous driving.
The stock is currently trading at a forward P/E ratio of 25 while hoping to achieve a 50% increase in revenue next year. And I think this could prove to be very realistic, especially when you think about where all the CapEx spending ultimately goes to.
I am of the wholehearted belief that rather sooner than later Nvidia will overtake Apple as the most valuable companies and all those who don’t use this recent drawdown as a buying opportunity will regret that for the rest of their lives.
Amazon ($AMZN (-0,58%)
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As the market leader for online shopping Amazon has quite a brand recognition and yes, it is just one of the most convenient ways to order whatever your heart desires. The products amazon offers range from food to electronics to books and shelves. At this point there is almost nothing you could not buy on Amazon.
But that is not everything you get, when investing into the Amazon stock. With a forward P/E ratio of 25 you get the whole package Amazon has to offer: The online store as a core business, with a loyal customer base. Amazon Web Services, which impresses with 20% growth annually, as the leading cloud provider in the cloud oligopoly consisting of AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
And then as an extra you get the stable subscription services business with Amazon Prime, that could continue to take market share from other streaming providers in the future.
As a whole Amazon is projected to achieve a CAGR of more than 10% for the next years, mainly driven by AWS, but the e-commerce should not be dismissed either, as it is the single most convenient way to get whatever you want delivered to your doorstep in a very short timeframe. I consider Amazon a buy, even if it not the most attractive one out of these seven companies, it is one with a lot of upside potential and a fair valuation.
Alphabet ($GOOGL (-0,38%) )
Alphabet is another one of these companies that is an integral part of daily life. Even though Google as a search engine is the most well-known of Alphabets services, there is a lot more to discover.
YouTube as technically the largest streaming provider on earth, with over 2.5 billion monthly active users and high growth, even though it can’t be specifically measured as Alphabet doesn’t give out the exact figures for the subsidiaries, but rather posts revenue and profits as a whole combined in Google Services.
Another key growth driver is Google Cloud, which indeed currently is the smallest of the three main players, but it also has the highest growth rates, with 30% YoY, so it is catching up.
Another key step Alphabet took to make Google Cloud unique is the acquisition of the cyber security company Wiz and even though there is some concern about the high price tag that has been put on the company, Google has proven to be one of the best acquirers in the sectors. To give you some context, four out of the ten most profitable acquisitions were made by Google, including DoubleClick, YouTube, Android and Maps.
Which brings us to another key part of the Alphabet structure, Android. For those few of you out there who don’t use an iPhone or iPad, you will probably have been in contact with Andoid as an operating system. Samsung, Xiaomi and many other devices rely on Android. And as we can see now in China, Apple loses its dominance and other companies, using the Android system, are on the rise.
There are some concerns that Alphabet’s core business, Google Search, could be disrupted in the future by AI, but first let me say that I see that as a highly unlikely possibility, as there is no clear sign yet, rather the opposite can be seen, since Google Search saw almost a 10% Growth YoY. But even if there is a disruption in the future, it should be a process that takes many many years and who says that Google won’t be able to integrate its in-house AI model Gemini into their search monopoly.
I haven’t even mentioned Waymo, Google’s autonomous vehicle startup, as it is only in its early steps, but already way ahead of its competition, since it has compared to the so beloved Tesla already vehicles driving on the ground in several US cities, with notable partners such as UBER.
And all of that you produces a 10% growth YoY projected into the future, with Google Search building the core and the other sectors adding the growth. So what’s the price point for all this? After the recent sell-off the Alphabet stock trades at a forward P/E ratio of around 17, which is a great buying opportunity if you can live with the, in my opinion far-fetched, disruption risk.
Meta ($META (-0,34%) )
Let’s move on to the next company on this list. Not just Mark Zuckerberg has made a stunning transition in appearances and political ideology throughout the last few years, his company formerly known as Facebook has too.
Let’s be honest nobody under the age of 60 uses Facebook anymore, but there is so much more to be found in the portfolio of Meta Platforms and the concerns of the company focusing too much on the Metaverse, which led to the stock tumbling a few years ago, have long vanished.
Meta has made one of the greatest acquisitions in history when they decided to buy Instagram, back in 2012 for a staggering amount of $1 billion. But it paid off massively and Meta has arguably the greatest platform in the social media landscape. Almost 70% of all internet users use WhatsApp as their primary communication platform and Instagram is right up there with TikTok, X and YouTube as the most used social media platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg created a monster in the communications industry and his recent shifts on user and behavioural guidelines on his platforms more towards the system X is using, by allowing free expression of opinions and reliant on community notes, could help broadening the customer base of Meta even more.
The Meta stock currently trades at a forward P/E ratio of 23 and is therefore one of the cheapest out of the Mag7 companies. The stock has had a good run in the beginning of the year, but came back to the levels of December 2024 and I would consider it a good buy, as it seems also quite recession and tariff resistent for the supposed uncertainty the market will have to fight with in the next months.
Tesla ($TSLA (-0,89%) )
Everything I have to say about Tesla is that it is way more than about cars, it is about an entrepreneurial genius, who continues to impress with his ventures and innovations. Elon Musk can be considered to be one of the greatest entrepreneurs to have ever lived, whether we are talking about SpaceX, Neuralink or Tesla.
But nevertheless I think Tesla trading at forward P/E ration of more than 100 resembles the religious approach investors hold towards this stock and this man. I am familiar with the argument people are making about all the great innovations Tesla still has in store with autonomous driving or humanoid robots, but at this point there wasn’t much to be seen, apart from Waymo’s back in autonomous driving and a human-controlled robot demo.
But Elon Musk is no one to write off, it could be that tomorrow he announces another groundbreaking innovation, but for me personally it is not worth the risk and I’ll certainly stay out of the Tesla cult until Elon Musk decides to shift his focus away from his governmental experiments, more towards his companies again.
Conclusion
The Mag7 are one of the greatest companies in the world and they are in some cases quite cheap after the recent downturn and some of them are enormous opportunities for mid- to long-term investors, but depends how risk-averse you are.
Alphabet and Meta are as close to a no-brainer as you can get without missing something and Nvidia is the single hope and biggest force for America’s AI future. Others like Microsoft and Amazon I would consider fairly valued and stable companies with long-term potential and very few downside risks, while Tesla and Apple are not even remotely trading within my buy range. Apple has lost its edge, it is still a great company, a cash-producing monster, but growth at this stage is limited and the valuation is somewhat stretched. And Tesla is just a religion: You love it or you hate it, but you should never count it and especially its highly impressive CEO out.
So, use the current levels these fabulous companies are trading at as a buying opportunity, but always weigh downside risk against future potential.
