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The broadening of the stock market rally has become a crucial theme during the second half of 2024.
Amid thestart of rate cuts — and economic data that's showed the US economy remains in better shape than initially feared — the recent push to new record highs has largely been about companies not named Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA), or Nvidia (NVDA).
But the debate over whether the market's next leg higher will be led by just a few large tech companies — as was the case in 2023 and the early part of 2024 — continues to roll on among investors.
In a note on Friday, data from FactSet showed that earnings for the 493 companies in the S&P 500 outside the "Magnificent Seven" are expected to grow by an average of more than 13% over the next five quarters. Conversely, the Magnificent Seven are expected to see earnings grow by an average of nearly 19% over the same time period.
Notably, this represents a pickup in growth for the 493 from 2024 and a notch lower for the Magnificent Seven. This more positive trend in the 493 is one of the reasons strategists have called for a continued broadening out of the rally.But as our chart below shows, the difference in trend growth is a narrowing race.
And some believe Big Tech could still be the winner.
"The Mag 7 are still expected to post superior (and presumably more reliable) earnings growth than the rest of the index," DataTrek co-founder Nicholas Colas said.
Colas noted that this data suggests tech "should begin to play catchup into the end of the year," as the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) has underperformed the S&P 500 over the past month and throughout 2024.
"Going forward, the path to outperformance will be assessing whether Big Tech or the rest of the S&P 500 will exhibit better earnings momentum," Colas wrote. "If one believes that US GDP growth can be +3% in 2025, then the S&P 493 is likely the better bet. Our own view is that growth will be more modest, giving the edge to Big Tech."
Part of the tech revival may already be playing out. Nvidia has soared to a fresh record highover the past month, its first since June. Apple stock closed at a record high of $235 per share on Friday and added to those gains on Monday. Netflix (NFLX), the first of the large tech giants to report earnings, saw a massive rally in its stock to a fresh record high after another impressive round of earnings.
That move in the streaming giant is perhaps the most illuminating when considering the case for Big Tech to lead the market. Even Netflix, which had already seenits stock rise more than 50% on the year before earnings, managed to surprise Wall Street to the upside.
Perhaps this serves as an early reminder that while growth in tech is "expected" to slow from its rapid pace over the past year, that doesn't mean there can't be upside surprises — or that it still can't outperform. You don't need to look beyond the past 18 months of many tech earnings reports coming in better than expected for the empirical evidence.
Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.
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