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Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, prepares to throw the ceremonial first pitch before a game between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Oracle Park on September 3, 2024, in San Francisco, California (Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)
The chosen one

Nvidia’s not just lapping other chip stocks. It’s running the table on the Magnificent Seven.

The relationship between the daily swings in Nvidia and other megacap tech stocks has virtually disappeared despite the fact that many of them are its biggest customers.

Luke Kawa

Nvidia isn’t just breaking away from its competitors in the semiconductor industry with an eye-popping run of recent gains.

It’s also setting itself apart from another set of peers: the so-called Magnificent Seven of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla.

Apple, the Magnificent Seven component that’s done the second-best over the past month, is still 20 percentage points behind Nvidia’s whopping 24% gain.

In the process, the relationship between the daily swings in Nvidia and the other megacap tech companies has effectively gone to zero. The 21-day average pairwise correlation between the percent change in Nvidia versus the other six of the Mag Seven has dropped from 60% at the start of October to less than 7% as of the close on Monday. That’s the lowest level since early to mid-July, when the correlation was actually negative. Soon thereafter, tech stocks had a correlations-to-one move as investors rotated into small caps, resulting in a pullback for the S&P 500.

I’ve maintained that it’s very curious whenever Nvidia is able to trade so independently of other tech titans, given that many of these are its most important customers. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are widely assumed to be the four companies that make up roughly half of Nvidia’s sales. The chip designer needs those companies to be raking in so much cash from their business operations that they can justify spending tens of billions of dollars on AI without batting an eye.

The relationship between Nvidia and its cash-flush customers is charitably symbiotic, where its chip sales will facilitate massive cost savings down the road, or at best temporarily parasitic until the economic cycle turns or there’s sufficient evidence that the returns on AI investments don’t make the juice worth the squeeze.

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Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan is surrounded by NBA Championship trophies after his team defeated the Utah Jazz 90-86 to win the 1997 NBA Finals at the United Center in Chicago, IL.

Stock climb on US-Iran peace deal; semiconductors rally

This morning, President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war.

markets

Intel surges after Trump announces US chip deal with Apple

Intel is soaring in early trading after President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Apple has agreed to work with the semiconductor giant to design and manufacture its chips domestically.

President Trump positioned the agreement as the latest victory for his administration’s industrial policy after the federal government acquired a 9.9% equity stake in Intel last year.

"Stupid Presidents took our Economy for granted, and let Taiwan and others steal our Semiconductor Factories," Trump wrote in the post. "We design everything, but we need to BUILD it here, NOW! So I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America... and, finally, Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build its Chips in America."

Intel reportedly reached a preliminary agreement back in May to manufacture chips for the Apple, which has been facing supply constraints for its iPhone as well other products. The deal could help Apple reduce its reliance on longtime partner TSMC by bringing more of its chip manufacturing stateside.

"This partnership helps Apple with chip development and manufacturing on US soil with greater focus on reducing dependence on Asian manufacturing facilities." Wedbush's Dan Ives commented in a company report. He has a $400 price target for Apple this year.

The timing aligns with Intel's technical roadmap. Earlier this week, Intel confirmed that its advanced, performance-boosted 18A-P process node officially entered its risk production phase. This move serves as a blueprint for both Intel chips and processors the company plans to build for foundry customers.

“The current capacity crunch is probably emboldening customers to give Intel a harder look at this stage than perhaps they might ordinarily be inclined to do as the prospect of more advanced capacity will take on higher value in a constrained environment,” wrote Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. “We are sure that Trump’s encouragement is at least not going to hurt though.”

Momentum was built around Intel Foundry services as surging global AI demand continuously outpaced capacity. Earlier this month, Google reportedly placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million of its increasingly popular tensor processing unit chips in 2028. According to the report, Nvidia is also testing to see if Intel could manufacture its next-gen Feynman chips.

markets

Stocks rise after US, Iran sign peace plan

Stocks rose Thursday morning after President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war, in another sign that a months-long war that caused energy prices to spike could be coming to an end.

Trump signed the MOU before a dinner in Versailles, France on Wednesday evening. The president previously announced that a deal had been reached on Sunday evening, saying that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would resume and that the US naval blockade would be lifted.

The deal comes after both sides exchanged attacks last week, escalating tensions to some of the highest levels since the US and Israel struck Iran in late February.

The price of Brent Crude ticked even lower after dropping on Sunday, sitting at about $76 a barrel. Oil giants like Shell, Chevron and Exxon fell on the news, as average gas prices in the US dropped below $4 for the first time in months.

Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% and 1.5%, respectively. Last week, inflation readings for May showed both wholesale inflation and consumer prices rose in large part because of higher energy costs.

Signs of the peace deal have also lead to buying of momentum stocks this week. iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETFrose another 1.46% in premarket trading.

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