Navigating a Narrow Market Environment

By: Stephen Way, Andres Perez, and Mark Weinberg • February 28, 2024

Six of the ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks have reported Q4 2023 results, and all but Tesla exceeded consensus sales estimates. The group has outperformed this year, returning 11.0% to February 14, 2024, contributing approximately 54% to the S&P 500 Index’s return of 5.0%. This compares to the return of 2.6% for the rest of the S&P 493. If one includes only the four of seven companies that have meaningfully contributed to the cap-weighted S&P 500 Index this year: Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., NVIDIA Corp., and Meta Platforms Inc., the results are even more disparate. These four stocks have returned 21.8% YTD*, contributing 65% of the return of the S&P 500 Index, while the S&P496 has returned a meagre 1.7%. This is not far off last year’s 60% contribution to the S&P500 Index return of 26.3%, as the Magnificent 7 returned 86.7% compared to 5.0% for the S&P493.

 

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Publication date: February 15, 2024.