Magnificent Seven Earnings Arrive With Stocks at Critical Moment

Big Tech earnings arrive next week, right in time for investors looking for an artificial intelligence-powered rebound in the slumping S&P 500 Index, which just suffered through its worst week in over a year.

Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Tesla Inc., all of which are among the so-called Magnificent Seven group of tech giants, will report next week. Technology stocks are selling off, with the Nasdaq 100 Index registering its biggest weekly drop since November 2022 in the midst of a four-week losing streak, its longest since December 2022. Even AI darling Nvidia Corp. is getting hit, plunging 10% on Friday and wiping out $212 billion in market value for its worst day since the Covid pandemic in March 2020.

But hope is on the horizon. Profits for the Mag Seven — which also includes Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Nvidia — are forecast to rise 38% in the first quarter from a year ago, dwarfing the overall S&P 500’s 2.4% anticipated year-over-year earnings growth, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data.

Around 178 S&P 500 companies — representing more than 40% of the index’s market capitalization — will post results next week. But the biggest expectations are for megacap tech firms. The problem is, when excluding Nvidia, the leading chipmaker for AI technology, expected net income growth for the group falls to 23%, and the AI plans get squishier. Nvidia, which Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s trading desk dubbed “the most important stock on planet Earth,” doesn’t report its earnings for another month.