Magnificent 7: Bubble Or Not?
Time and again over the past two or three years, bears and market skeptics in general suggested big-tech (which is to say America's mega-cap titans, irrespective of whether they're technically classified as "tech") might eventually be exposed as cyclical stocks masquerading as growth shares.
In fairness to that narrative, 2022 demonstrated that it is indeed possible for those companies to disappoint on the top-line. Of course, the comps were difficult: The stay-at-home boom and the 2021 economy
Only two numbers count in the measurement of performance in a time series such as stock price returns, the first day and the last. Everything in between those two days can vary infinitely without affecting the average return over the period. It’s just the math. The results for 2.5 years in COVID is essentially zero. The 49% “crash” and subsequent rise are immaterial.
This is exactly why I rarely purchase a stock that I would not want to hold forever- because I am terrible at timing in the short term.
I will, however, be focusing even more than usual on potential sales growth and margin improvements on some of my holdings- particularly the ones that are up over 50% in the past 3-4 months.
Two interesting articles on real world users of AI. The first spoke about how AI is helping criminals create much more realistic deep fake images able to fool dual factor authentication routines. (SC Magazine daily blog.)
The second came from Malwarebytes how AI will enable autocratic regimes to better spy on political dissenters.
AI – making life better and better!
OT
More AI fun:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/deepfake-scammer-walks-off-with-25-million-in-first-of-its-kind-ai-heist/
It will be an interesting election as AI influences the votes of the mushy middle, and between now and then, expect some more spectacular financial capers.
If artificial general intelligence becomes a reality, then all bets are off.
Whoever controls the machines, will control the world.
As such, whoever has all the money, will end up controlling the world.
The magnificent seven can do very well in future years. Exceedingly well.
But right now, there is a lot of froth.
There are some truly excellent small cap names right now that have been getting hammered.
The sun shines on only the tallest trees.
One of the Mag7 actually looks undervalued on old school DCF. The rest . . .