With the support of the AI boom, the "Magnificent Seven Sisters" of the US stock market are expected to continue soaring in the next year.

The performance of the "Magnificent Seven Sisters" in 2023 is exciting, significantly outperforming major US stock indices. Some of these stocks have been boosted by developments in artificial intelligence (AI). However, experts say that the AI journey of these market leaders has just begun, and more innovations are expected in the AI field in 2024.

The "Magnificent Seven Sisters" become the driving force of the US stock market in 2023

Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett coined the term "Magnificent Seven Sisters" in 2023, referring to a group of outstanding US tech giant stocks, including Microsoft (MSFT.US), Amazon, Meta (META.US), Apple (AAPL.US), Alphabet-C parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.US), NVIDIA, and Tesla (TSLA.US).

After a dismal performance in 2022, with the S&P 500 index posting its worst performance since the Great Recession, the US stock market saw a remarkable recovery in 2023, thanks to the push from the "Magnificent Seven Sisters." The index rose more than 24% entering the final trading week of the year. Since the beginning of 2023, NVIDIA's stock price has more than doubled, while Meta and Tesla's stock prices have more than doubled. During the same period, Amazon rose 80%, while Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft rose nearly 60%.

According to the company's research, the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 index, referred to as the "weak 493" by Horizon Investments research director Mike Dickson, only rose a total of 7.5% as of early December. Dickson pointed out that the performance of these tech giants is superior to their peers in the index, largely driven by the potential of artificial intelligence.

What are the prospects for the "Magnificent Seven Sisters" in 2024?

Experts predict that the "Magnificent Seven Sisters" may gain more profits in the new year due to the vigorous development of artificial intelligence. According to a research report by UBS analysts, an unusual characteristic of generative artificial intelligence is that many of the same companies are already operating in multiple stages of the value chain, from cloud computing to ownership of large language models (LLMs), to the development of end-user applications. The "Magnificent Seven Sisters" have the "abundance of resources required to build complex AI models and benefit from them," and UBS "expects larger players to become even bigger."Microsoft

The stock price of tech giant Microsoft has risen nearly 60% this year, reaching multiple historical highs in 2023, partly due to people's interest in artificial intelligence. As an early leader in the AI boom, Microsoft has not only provided its own AI tools and hardware, but its collaboration with ChatGPT, the manufacturer of generative AI tool OpenAI, has also attracted great interest from investors. Through its "billions of dollars of investment over the years to accelerate breakthroughs in artificial intelligence," Microsoft has firmly established itself as a leader in the AI race.

Analysts believe that the company's progress and announcements in the field of artificial intelligence are unlikely to slow down in 2024, especially with the support of its partnership with OpenAI. For example, Wedbush analysts pointed out that Microsoft is "essentially the torchbearer of the global AI revolution" and added that in the view of the investment bank, Microsoft will usher in the next wave of cloud and AI growth in 2024, which has not yet been reflected in its stock price. OpenAI's "ChatGPT will become the next pillar of Microsoft's growth" and will "ultimately drive" growth and profitability in the 2024 fiscal year.

Alphabet-C

The stock price of Alphabet-C, the parent company of Alphabet, rose nearly 60% in 2023, and people are enthusiastic about the company's progress in artificial intelligence, including the launch of the chatbot Bard and the large language model (LLM) Gemini. Bard was released in February this year, and although the chatbot made a factual error in its initial public demonstration, its release was not impressive. However, since then, Bard has undergone several updates, making it a viable competitor to ChatGPT. In early December, Alphabet-C launched its own LLM AI model, Gemini, which reportedly outperformed OpenAI's GPT-4 model.

CFRA analyst Angelo Zino stated that Alphabet-C "may still be one step behind Microsoft/OpenAI," but "the pace of progress in artificial intelligence is very fast." He added that CFRA "believes that future upgrades to Gemini will enable Alphabet-C to keep up with competitors and become a major beneficiary of artificial intelligence." Alphabet-C has stated that it will launch "Gemini Ultra" after further fine-tuning, which is the "largest and most powerful model for performing highly complex tasks" and will power "Bard Advanced" in 2024. Morgan Stanley analysts also referred to Alphabet-C as the "new top pick" because Gemini has narrowed the gap with GenAI.

CFRA analysts stated, "Artificial intelligence is more like a story for 2024." They pointed out that when researching the prospects of Alphabet-C in the new year, CFRA "likes the plans related to Bard, Gemini, and Search Generative Experience."Amazon

As this e-commerce giant made progress in the field of artificial intelligence, Amazon's stock price rose by over 80% in 2023. It is worth noting that Amazon has started offering Bedrock through its cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon describes Bedrock as "a fully managed service that helps build and scale generative AI applications using leading foundational models from AI companies, through APIs and developer tools." In November, Amazon also launched GenAI Assistant Q, powered by AWS, as well as the next-generation custom AWS chip optimized for GenAI.

Similar to Microsoft, Amazon is solidifying its position in artificial intelligence by investing billions of dollars in a company that has already achieved success in this technology field. Amazon announced that it will invest up to $4 billion in the AI company Anthropic, which may enable the company to better compete with Microsoft-backed ChatGPT and Alphabet-C's Bard.

When asked about reports of Amazon developing a large language model (LLM) called Olympus, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky told the media to "expect to see multiple iterations of Amazon's first-party models." Selipsky also noted that he believes there will be "very rapid evolution and change" in 2024 as technology advances and enterprise integrations optimize.

JPMorgan analysts expect the "continued growth contributed by GenAI" to support AWS's growth in the coming year. In addition to AI projects, Amazon is also expected to perform positively in 2024, with JPMorgan analysts listing it as a "top pick" in the internet industry. JPMorgan analysts predict that Amazon's revenue will grow in the new year, driven by the reacceleration of its retail and AWS businesses and expanding profit margins.

NVIDIA

Even among these seven giants, NVIDIA was a major beneficiary of the AI boom in 2023, with the largest fluctuations in stock price compared to other companies. In that year, NVIDIA's stock price experienced double-digit growth multiple times within a day. On May 25th, the stock price soared by over 24% from the previous day's closing after the company reported "surging demand" for its products and first-quarter earnings exceeding expectations.

As companies compete to build AI models and integrate AI tools, NVIDIA's chips are being used to power a large portion of the technology. Analysts at Bank of America wrote that as an upstream company in the AI field, this chip manufacturer may hold over 90% market share in the AI training field. In November, NVIDIA released its most powerful graphics processing unit (GPU), the H200, designed to support AI models.This new chip will be used by Amazon, Alphabet-C, Microsoft, and other systems.

While some are concerned about the impact of US restrictions on exporting AI chips to China on NVIDIA's profits, analysts have consistently believed that the chip manufacturer's earnings in the AI boom will drive profitability. Jefferies analysts stated that compared to competitors such as Intel and AMD, NVIDIA may be in the "best position" and they rated NVIDIA as their "top pick". Wedbush analysts stated that although other chip manufacturers such as AMD and Intel have made progress in getting a piece of the pie, NVIDIA "will ultimately be the winner".

Meta

With Facebook's parent company joining the AI push, Meta's stock price has nearly doubled in 2023. In February of this year, the company introduced the large language model LLaMA. Since then, Meta has used its AI technology to improve algorithms and advertising systems. The company stated in a press release, "AI is a fundamental component of Meta's applications and services, enhancing performance, measurement, and activity settings." Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that AI recommendation tools have driven an increase in the time users spend on the Meta platform.

CFRA analysts stated that Meta's efforts in AI have so far been focused on improving its recommendations/rankings and powering the entire ecosystem, but "over time, Meta can monetize AI through its Llama 2, AI agents, and virtual worlds." CFRA is "more optimistic about Meta's initiatives to build a content-driven discovery platform".

Tesla

Tesla's stock price has almost doubled in 2023, despite the fact that the electric vehicle pioneer has not launched many major AI projects. However, the company is no stranger to this technology as Tesla's autonomous vehicles rely on AI technology. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also openly stated that AI is the "most disruptive force in history" and even said, "There will be a time in the future when there is no need to work... AI will be able to do everything."

In July of this year, Musk launched the AI-focused company xAI. Although x.AI is an independent company, it will work closely with X (formerly known as Twitter) and Tesla. In November, the company launched the AI chatbot Grok, although the product has not been widely used.

However, the new year may be a challenging one for Tesla, with Bernstein analysts even stating that shorting Tesla may be the "best choice" for 2024. Bernstein expects that the electric vehicle pioneer may "disappoint investors" in the new year due to the "narrow (and expensive) product lineup approaching saturation and the ongoing competition in the electric vehicle field".Apple

While Apple may not have released its own AI chatbot like other tech giants, the company has confirmed its collaboration with AI technology, leading to a nearly 60% increase in its stock price in 2023. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated during the May earnings conference call that Apple will continue to integrate AI into its products with careful consideration. It has been reported that Apple is also developing a chatbot, which may be released later.

Although Apple's involvement in the AI race is relatively low, analysts believe that the tech giant is poised to turn a profit in 2024, especially with the support of the iPhone 15 for its holiday sales. Wedbush analysts state that the next fiscal year is a "golden opportunity" for Apple investors, as there are approximately 240 million iPhones globally in the upgrade window for iPhone 15 and services alone. Wedbush estimates the value to be between $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion, which will "reaccelerate" by 2024.