· Mega-cap tech stocks once again carry the market on their
shoulders.
· Nvidia suffers the major blow from the rising geopolitical
conflicts.
Last week, the big seven stocks climbed to an all-time high, as their
concentration reached nearly 30% of the entire S&P 500 index.
However, excluding the „Magnificent Seven”, most stocks in the index look
somewhat undervalued. The S&P 493 (Ex-the Mega 7) trades at a handle of
16x, below its 10-year average of 17x.
Regarding the „Big 7”, these large-cap U.S. tech stocks trade at
considerably higher valuations than the other 493 stocks in the index. Many
investors have piled into those high-flying big techs: Apple, Microsoft,
Amazon, Google, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta.
To put it differently, for every dollar you invest in the S&P 500,
almost 30 cents go to just seven stocks, and the remaining 70 cents go to
the rest of the 493 other stocks.
So far this earnings season, stocks have seen a lot of downgrades. Fidelity
forecasts Earnings Per Share (EPS) jumping 12% for the next two years,
which looks ambitious. Should bond yields continue to climb to a 5-handle,
levels not seen since 2007, there will be even more pressure for sky-flying
tech stocks to correct. Not to mention that the high probability
that we head into a recession scenario, which would be very negative for
the bulls.
The rising trade war between the US and China will only add
further headwinds for equities, on top of the escalating conflict in the Middle
East. Those geopolitical risks could lead to high-tech valuations,
correcting the downside as risk premiums increase.
One of the leading stocks, Nvidia, has seen its biggest drop this year as
President Biden restricted AI chip sales to China. The goal is to limit
China’s “access to advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in
AI.”
Nvidia substantially relies on China for the graphics processing units
(GPUs), as the chipmaker generates over 22% of its sales from the 2
nd
largest global economy.
Shareholders were stunned as the stock vaporized nearly $100 billion in
Market Cap in just 24 hours after the announcement from Biden’s
administration.
US commerce announced that the goal was to curb China’s access to advanced
chips, which „could fuel breakthroughs in AI and sophisticated computers.”
GPUs have been a critical component for training AI models for tech,
start-ups, and even governments.
Nvidia has been trending downward since September. If this trend continues
and breaks critical support levels of 410 and 400, it has the potential to
drag down the remaining big tech giants’ valuations and the entire S&P
500 index with them.
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