Happy Friday! The S&P 500 is coming off its first winning day of the week, largely thanks to Tesla.

A slate of high-profile tech earnings are due the coming days. Today’s edition unpacks Wall Street’s high expectations for the Magnificent Seven — and lack thereof for everything else.

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Banking on magnificence

For all the frills and hype surrounding AI, one glance at the stock market’s top-performers shows investors have plenty of enthusiasm left for the technology. 

Big Tech earnings have kicked off with a bang, with Tesla stock spiking after the company surpassed Wall Street’s expectations.

Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon come next week, then Nvidia reports in November for the grand finale. 

The bunch is forecasted to carry the rest of the S&P 500, according to FactSet.

Third-quarter earnings growth for the Magnificent Seven is seen increasing 18% compared to a year ago, while the other 493 companies are expected to be effectively flat.

The group makes up about one-third of the S&P 500’s value, and together have more than doubled the returns of the S&P 500 this year, as measured by Roundhill Ball’s Magnificent Seven ETF. 

Given Big Tech’s outsized influence on the benchmark index, positive earnings for the bunch could help the S&P 500 push to new record highs. 

The giant among giants

While it’s been accurate to say lately that the stock market goes as Big Tech goes, the same appears true with Nvidia’s sway within the Magnificent Seven.

Even more radical to consider, Nvidia is now bigger than the total market cap of five of the G7 countries, according to Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok.

The chip-maker has outperformed its peers at every point of 2024, though its year-to-date returns started to become more outlandish around April.

By June, Nvidia was roughly tripling the returns of Meta, the second-best performer in the Magnificent Seven. 

It’s maintained that gap ever since with a 189% return year-to-date.

Remember, Nvidia’s biggest customers are actually its peers within the Magnificent Seven. 

Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are reportedly responsible for about half of Nvidia’s chip sales.

Investors have enjoyed stellar returns from each of them this year, and so far none of Wall Street’s major firms have raised concerns about how tied up they all are with one another.

Bank of America, for one, raised its price target for Nvidia this week from $165 a share to $190, some 36% higher than Thursday’s price. 

“The bottom line is that global equity markets, including retirement allocations to equities, are basically leveraged to NVIDIA,” Slok said. “Let’s hope the value of NVIDIA doesn’t decline significantly.”

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Elsewhere:

📉Jobless claims dropped unexpectedly. New data showed 227,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week up to October 19, below the expected 242,000 and less than the prior week’s figure 241,000. Some analysts say the move lower reflects a recovery from recent weather disruptions. (Yahoo Finance)

🚗Tesla stock had its best day since 2013. Shares surged more than 20% Thursday following its strong earnings the evening before. Its Cybertruck achieved profitability in the third quarter, and in 2025, the company sees as much as 30% growth in vehicle sales. (Bloomberg)

💵 High prices still weigh on Americans. Inflation has cooled off but people still haven’t gotten over how much higher prices are today than in 2020. The dramatic price tags for everything from groceries to fuel have contrasted with politicians’ claims that the economy is in great shape. (WSJ)

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