The average investor is running away from 'Magnificent 7' stocks

The average investor is running away from 'Magnificent 7' stocks Brian Sozzi · Executive Editor Thu, July 2, 2026 at 2:02 PM GMT+2 2 min read NVDA MSFT GOOGL AMZN META The dark clouds continue to hover over the once ultra-hot "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks, and retail investors are running for cover. Retail investors accounted for a mere 6% of total Magnificent Seven trading volume over the five trading days ending last Friday, according to new research from Citi. That marks the lowest percentage in four years.

Individual investors showed less interest in Magnificent Seven stocks during the past week than on roughly 85% of the trading days since 2022, Citi pointed out. By comparison, retail trading activity accounted for more than 20% of Magnificent Seven trading volume during some periods in 2023 and 2024. It stayed above 15% for much of 2025.

"Retail interest is shifting from the Magnificent 7 toward semiconductor stocks," strategists at The Kobeissi Letter noted. A person walks past the logo for "Meta", outside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park on Oct. 28, 2021.

(NOAH BERGER/AFP via Getty Images) · NOAH BERGER via Getty Images The companies that make up the Magnificent Seven are Nvidia ( NVDA ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), Alphabet ( GOOGL ), Amazon ( AMZN ), Meta Platforms ( META ), Apple ( AAPL ), and Tesla ( TSLA ). Wall Street is growing increasingly impatient with Big Tech's astronomical capital expenditures on artificial intelligence, projected to balloon 70% to exceed $700 billion this year. This aggressive, unyielding infrastructure spending on data centers and high-end GPUs has heavily cannibalized corporate cash generation.

The Magnificent Seven's collective 12-month forward free cash flow is expected to drop sharply from its 2024 peak. This embedded content is not available in your region. Sprinkle in concerns about a Fed rate hike later this year — which would increase the cost of financing for AI projects — and it makes sense why this group is sucking wind on the stock charts.

All seven of the names are down double-digit percentages from their 52-week highs, per Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace data. "We are going through another 'gut check' few weeks ahead for the tech trade as tech investors await a very important 2Q earnings season in July to further validate the AI Revolution buildout," Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note. "In the meantime jitters will continue as worries around the costs of this once in a generation tech buildout hit its next gear of growth.

" Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi , Instagram , and LinkedIn . Tips on stories?

Email brian. sozzi@yahoofinance. com.