Big Tech has reclaimed the stock market’s steering wheel after lagging all year.

The Magnificent 7 stocks spent most of the year losing money for investors while the rest of the S&P 500 climbed without them.

But that has reversed since August, and it only took a few weeks for mega-cap tech to close the gap.

Roundhill’s Magnificent 7 ETF (MAGS) fell as much as 16% six months ago while the Defiance’s ex-Mag 7 large-cap ETF (XMAG) never sold off more than 4%. The performance gap between the two this summer expanded to nearly 20 percentage points.  

The Magnificent 7 now accounts for roughly one-third of the S&P 500’s total market value and the group has afforded investors an easy bet in recent history.

If the year ended today, it would mark the first time since 2022 that the group under-performed the S&P 500.  

Not only that, but as it turns out, 2026 would mark the first time that the group has trailed the index in a year that the market was actually going up.

Equal-weight investing back in June had been the prudent hedge against concentration risk.

Yet three months later and the index is relying on the same seven stocks that carried the market after the pandemic. 

Looking for a Big Tech catch-up trade is no longer a contrarian position.

📊 PCE inflation cooled in August. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge rose 3.4% year over year against forecasts of 3.7%. Meanwhile ADP reported 90,000 private-sector jobs added versus expectations of 68,000. (Yahoo Finance)

🤖 Anthropic's leaked IPO prospectus revealed 47% of 2025 sales routed through Amazon and Google. The concentration climbed from 32% in 2024 and 11% in 2023 as the AI lab grew $417 billion in computing commitments for 3.5 gigawatts of capacity by early 2026. (Reuters)

🛢 Crude oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz recovered to pre-war levels. The rebound signals Tehran's weakening chokehold on the world's most important oil transit point after 215 days of conflict. (CNBC)

I took the stage at Future Proof in Huntington Beach with Miami-based VC investors Justus Parmar and Joey Magazine to discuss their America-first investment strategy, aligning investment ideas with policy, and how they are positioned for the next decade.

Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

🗓 October 1, 1928: The Dow Jones Industrial Average expanded from 20 to 30 stocks on this day, locking in the composition size it still uses today.

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