This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The "Magnificent Seven" grouping of stocks represents seven of the biggest and most influential companies in the world that make up roughly one-third of the market cap-weighted S&P 500. Its members have a significant impact on whether the overall stock market rises or falls in a given day, so they are closely watched by both analysts and retail investors.

In a series of articles, I've been looking at each of these companies to predict which is the best Magnificent Seven stock to buy for 2026. And while I'll reveal the full rankings later in this piece, it's time to unveil the legendary company that tops the rankings and appears to be in the best position as we head into the new year.

Let's pull the curtain back on my No. 1 pick: Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL). 

About Alphabet stock

Alphabet is probably still better known as Google, and for good reason. Google has an unshakable lead in global internet search, with 89.9% of the market share. The search engine in second place, Bing, has just 4.2%. And Alphabet's Chrome browser is nearly as dominant with 71.2% of the market, topping second-place Safari with 14.3%.

This means that Alphabet is unquestionably the most consequential internet company in the world. And it gives it a massive advantage, both in selling advertising and pushing content to prime locations on the web.

Alphabet brought in $74.18 billion in revenue during the third quarter from advertising, which includes Google Search, its Google network, and YouTube. That's a 12.6% increase from a year ago, made possible by Alphabet's use of powerful AI tools. For instance, Alphabet uses AI to provide more relevant answers to search queries and also launched an AI Overviews feature that appears at the top of a search result. It also uses AI to optimize the creation and placement of advertising, and even has AI tools to help users answer their email.

In all, advertising made up 72% of Alphabet's $102.34 billion in revenue for the third quarter, helping it achieve an incredible $73.55 billion in free cash flow over the last 12 months.

Alphabet is making huge strides in cloud computing

As dynamic as Alphabet's advertising business is, I think the cloud computing opportunity is even greater. Google Cloud is only third by market share with 13%, trailing Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, but it's seeing substantial growth. Google Cloud generated $15.15 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up 33% from a year ago. It was also responsible for $3.59 billion in operating income, up from $1.94 billion a year ago.

Finally, Alphabet has a big opportunity with its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), which are its in-house alternative to Nvidia's vaunted (and expensive) graphics processing units (GPUs). Alphabet's TPUs aren't as versatile as GPUs, but they are effective in training its AI models. Now Alphabet is reportedly discussing a deal that would sell billions of TPUs to Meta Platforms and it has a deal with Anthropic, which announced it will expand its use of Google Cloud to include up to 1 million TPUs.

Coupled with Google's massive advertising business, the fast-growing cloud opportunity makes Alphabet even more formidable -- and attractive for investors as we head into 2026.

Why Alphabet is No. 1

Alphabet shares are up more than 60%, but the company is still reasonably priced. Its forward price-to-earnings ratio of 29.7 remains one of the lowest in the Magnificent Seven.

Revenue estimates for next year of $454.8 billion have climbed steadily over the last six months, as the market begins to realize the massive potential of Alphabet stock.

While this company may not be the flashiest in the Magnificent Seven -- I would give that crown to either Nvidia or Tesla -- I think it's a no-brainer for any investor to buy right now.

The list in review

Now we finally have the full list, in order:

• No. 1 Alphabet is the dominant internet company on the planet and is starting to market its alternative to Nvidia GPUs.
• No. 2 Nvidia is the largest company in the world by market capitalization and has taken the leading role in providing high-powered GPUs to data centers, powering the AI revolution.
• No. 3 Meta Platforms shifted its attention away from the metaverse and is now focused on developing "personal superintelligence" through AI.
• No. 4 Microsoft has powerful revenue streams through its cloud computing division and its profitable suite of software, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• No. 5 Tesla aims to make breathtaking advancements in autonomous driving, which, if successful, will enable hundreds of thousands of Teslas to be used as robotaxis.
• No. 6 Amazon is the globe's biggest provider of cloud computing, but is hampered by the comparatively low margins of its legacy e-commerce business.
• No. 7 Apple isn't monetizing AI like its Magnificent Seven peers, but it's developing advanced chips to run large AI models on its products.

You really can't go wrong with any of these companies. However, I believe Alphabet is the clear winner for investors seeking to purchase a Magnificent Seven stock for 2026.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The Magnificent Seven grouping of stocks has been one of the biggest stories on Wall Street. Coined by Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett in 2023, this collection represents seven high-performing tech companies that are among the most influential in the U.S. The name was derived from a 1960 Western film of the same name.

Collectively, these companies comprise 34% of the S&P 500, a remarkable percentage. Just let that sink in for a moment -- out of 500 stocks, these seven account for a full one-third of the market capitalization of the index.

That's why the Magnificent Seven stocks are watched so closely -- they have an outsize impact on the market, and they have been responsible for a lot of the market's success. Over the course of a decade, from 2015 to 2024, these companies experienced a gain of nearly 700%.

This is the first part of a seven-article series ranking the best Magnificent Seven stocks to buy for 2026, in reverse order. All of these companies are excellent stocks to buy, but in ranking them, only one can be in the ignominious seventh spot.

As I'm looking at what to expect in the coming year, the smartphone giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is my seventh-rated Magnificent Seven stock to buy.

About Apple stock

Apple is a famed tech company that's best known for its revolutionary smartphone, the iPhone. Apple's iPhone provided internet access, phone service, texting, music, and access to Apple's App Store via a touchscreen interface -- something completely groundbreaking when the first models rolled out.

Apple's iPhone was unique compared to phones offered by Nokia, BlackBerry, and Motorola, and it changed the game for Apple stock. Shares jumped 133% in 2007, the year that the iPhone came out.

Today, Apple still generates most of its revenue from iPhone sales, but it also manufactures personal computers, wearable devices, and tablets, and has a lucrative Services division that includes Apple Music, its streaming services, a payment network, and the App Store. For fiscal 2025, Apple had $416.1 billion in revenue, with half of that coming from iPhone sales.

Source: Apple

Investors surely would want to see brisker iPhone sales, but Apple's flagship product has been hampered in China -- sales in greater China fell 3.8% in 2025, as Apple has seen greater competition from Chinese-based companies that are now offering smartphones with 5G technology.

Fortunately, however, Apple is getting a huge boost from its lucrative Services segment, which has a higher profit margin than divisions that rely on hardware development and manufacturing.

Source: Apple.

What to expect from Apple in 2026

Apple has a market cap of around $4 trillion, making it at this writing the second-biggest company in the world by that measure. And the stock is up 8% this year.

The company is involved in artificial intelligence (AI), although its efforts are not as noticeable as some others in the Magnificent Seven. It's developing advanced M-series chips designed to run large AI models on its MacBooks, iPads, and Apple Vision Pro.

The company's strategy involves running AI programs on local devices rather than in cloud environments to maintain user privacy, although it does have a system -- Private Cloud Compute -- where data is processed in the cloud on secure Apple silicon servers but not stored or shared by Apple.

The company is selling its iPhone 17, a new Apple Watch lineup, and the third-generation version of its AirPods, and is coming off a quarter where its earnings per share jumped 13% on a year-over-year basis.

The company is ending 2025 in a great place -- remember, this is not a bad company. It just has the bad luck of being at the bottom of the rankings of my Magnificent Seven stocks to buy for 2026. It's not monetizing AI like some of its peers, unfortunately.

But it's still a strong buy in my books. You really can't go wrong with any of the Magnificent Seven stocks. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Apple. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Apple and BlackBerry. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is a leading artificial intelligence company that incorporates AI into its vast e-commerce and advertising platforms, as well as being the world's largest cloud computing company. However, it is now taking a key step in expanding its AI empire by rolling out a new AI chip that could significantly challenge the dominant position held by chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Amazon's Trainium3 chip is the latest movement in the company's efforts to scale up its custom AI hardware offerings. The company unveiled the chip Dec. 2 at its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. 

"Trainium already represents a multibillion-dollar business today and continues to grow really rapidly," Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said.

Should Nvidia investors be worried about Amazon's latest offering?

Amazon has compelling reasons to develop its own chips -- Nvidia's powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) are state-of-the-art, handling both the training and inference of the most advanced AI applications. But they're also extremely expensive. The Blackwell chips are reportedly priced between $30,000 and $40,000 each, and companies must cluster thousands of them in data centers to run AI programs.

The Trainium3 chips can handle some AI tasks at lower prices. Dave Brown, a vice president at Amazon Web Services, told Yahoo! Finance that developers can save 30% to 40% by using Amazon chips instead of Nvidia's.

And of course, the more work that Amazon does with its in-house chips, the less money it will need to spend with Nvidia. Amazon accounts for 7.5% of Nvidia's revenue, Bloomberg reports.

Will this hurt Nvidia?

On its own, probably not. Amazon won't completely stop buying Nvidia products, and Nvidia has no shortage of customers that it can replace Amazon with, if needed. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said that the company sold out of cloud GPUs and that its Blackwell sales are "off the charts." Revenue in the company's fiscal third quarter of 2026 (ending Oct. 26, 2025) was $57 billion, up 62% from a year ago. The company also reported data center revenue of $51.2 billion, representing a 66% increase from the same period in the previous year.

Nvidia's guidance calls for revenue this fiscal year of $212.8 billion, followed by fiscal 2027 revenue of $316 billion as it begins selling its next-generation Rubin architecture.

The company recently announced a deal with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, for 10 gigawatts of computing power, and has also recently secured deals with Anthropic, Intel, Palantir Technologies, Alphabet, Microsoft, Oracle, and xAI.

But the market's response to Amazon's new chip is worth watching -- especially in the wake of Meta Platforms' reported negotiations to buy data center chips from Alphabet's Google. It was only a matter of time before Nvidia started facing growing competition from some of its biggest customers, and it will be up to Huang's leadership team to prove to customers that its GPUs are worth the premium price.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Intel, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

While the stock market has been fretting in recent weeks about the idea of an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) may have just let the air out of those fears. The company's earnings report for its fiscal third quarter of 2026 shows that the appetite for AI stocks -- and Nvidia's groundbreaking infrastructure in particular -- remains ravenous. 

A look at Nvidia's report

Nvidia's earnings report after the bell on Nov. 19 showed record revenue of $57 billion, which is up 62% from last year and 22% on a sequential basis. Most of that revenue comes from Nvidia's data center sales, which recorded $51.2 billion in revenue – up 66% from last year.

Nvidia's gross margin was an incredible 73.4% with net income of $31.9 billion -- up 65% from last year and 21% from the second quarter. Earnings per share were up 67% from a year ago to $1.30.

"Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out," CEO Jensen Huang said. "Compute demand keeps accelerating and compounding across training and inference – each growing exponentially. We've entered the virtuous cycle of AI.

"The AI ecosystem is scaling fast -- with more new foundation model makers, more AI start-ups, across more industries, and in more countries," Huang said. "AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once."

Nvidia's guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter calls for revenue of $65 billion, and for margins to improve to between 74.8% and 75%.

What Nvidia's earnings mean for AI demand

If there's an AI bubble to be had, it won't be with Nvidia or its major customers. Nvidia already has contracts with OpenAI, which is using at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia architecture, and has a new agreement with Anthropic to build at least 1 gigawatt of compute power with Nvidia's chips.

In addition, Nvidia has partnerships with Alphabet's Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and xAI to build out domestic AI infrastructure -- all using Nvidia's chips.

That's why Nvidia's stock jumped 4% in after-hours trading after the company dropped its earnings report. Shares of other major AI stocks were also up – Advanced Micro Devices rose 3% in after-hours trading, Broadcom was up 2%, and Palantir Technologies was up 2.5%.

Nvidia's earnings report may be just the thing that the stock market -- and AI stocks in general -- need to finish the year strong. The technology sector has been slipping in recent weeks, having just broken even in the last month after a better than 20% gain in the first 10 months of 2025. With Nvidia showing continued strength and forecasting even better margins and revenue in the fourth quarter, fears of an AI bubble may fade away quickly.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended Broadcom and has recommended the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

A start-up artificial intelligence company is making headlines today after announcing deals with two of the world's largest tech companies. Anthropic is securing $5 billion from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), while leading chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is investing $10 billion in the latest deals to fuel AI's rapid expansion.

Both companies have high hopes that the deals with Anthropic, an AI research company valued at over $180 billion, will strengthen their market-leading positions. But which stock is the better buy following these transactions?

About the deals

The partnerships among the three companies were announced in a blog post on Nov. 18. In short, Anthropic will scale up its Claude AI model on Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Azure, and it will use Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin semiconductors to provide the compute power.

It's the first partnership between Anthropic and Nvidia, the world's leading producer of data center graphics processing units (GPUs) required for training and running high-performance AI programs. The companies said that Nvidia and Anthropic will collaborate on design and engineering to optimize Anthropic's AI models.

Anthropic's deal with Microsoft will make the AI company's Claude large language model (LLM) available to Microsoft Foundry customers, and will make Cloud the only frontier LLM available on the three leading cloud services – Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Alphabet's Google Cloud.

Anthropic is committed to purchasing $30 billion in Azure compute capacity and will have a contract for additional compute capacity of up to 1 gigawatt. 

Which stock is better after the Anthropic deal?

While both benefit, I think there's a clear winner here. However, first, it's essential to examine some background information.

Microsoft was one of the early investors in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, but the nature of that relationship is evolving. Last month, OpenAI announced it struck a deal with Microsoft that allows the company to restructure and frees it from giving Microsoft rights over OpenAI's work in exchange for cloud computing services. Microsoft still has a 27% stake in OpenAI, but the private company will now have greater control over its business operations.

Anthropic was founded by a former OpenAI executive and emphasizes AI safety, transparency, and research, in contrast to OpenAI's focus on general advancement and accessibility.

Make no mistake -- OpenAI and Anthropic will be competitors for a long time. Microsoft is working with both of them and hopes both will continue to grow. However, if Anthropic begins cutting too severely into ChatGPT's market share, Microsoft's $135 billion investment in OpenAI could be at risk.

Nvidia, however, has no such conflicts. OpenAI and Anthropic both rely heavily on its GPUs, and as both companies expand their products, they will need more computing power and more support from Nvidia.

I like both Microsoft and Nvidia. But if you're picking a winner in today's news, my money's on Nvidia stock. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

There's a new stock in Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio. The company, which has been led for six decades by its famed CEO Warren Buffett, disclosed it purchased 17.86 million shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), in a stake valued at $5.18 billion.

The investment is a departure from Buffett, who has previously expressed hesitation about buying tech stocks. However, Buffett has softened his tone on the sector in recent years, and this investment suggests that even in the twilight of his career, the Oracle of Omaha knows a good investment when he sees one. 

Buffett's evolution on tech stocks

While it's unclear if it was Buffett or one of his lieutenants who pulled the trigger on Alphabet stock, Buffett has long resisted investing in the company. In 1999, Buffett showed reluctance toward internet stocks in general. "The internet will have a huge impact on the world, but I'm not sure that it makes it an easy investment decision," he said at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting.

Two decades later, an interviewer asked Buffett specifically about Google (as Alphabet was then known) and Apple. He called them "extraordinary companies," but that didn't change his overall stance. "I would not be at all surprised to see them be worth a lot more money 10 years from now, but I wouldn't want to buy either one of them," he said.

Of course, Buffett later became a major investor in Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway continues to hold nearly $64 million shares of Apple stock -- the conglomerate's biggest single holding. Berkshire Hathaway eventually took a smaller stake in another tech stock, purchasing 10 million shares of Amazon, now worth $2.3 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway's investment in Alphabet

Notably, Berkshire Hathaway's investment in Alphabet is twice the size of the company's bet on Amazon. Both companies are leading hyperscalers, actively expanding their data center capacity to meet the demand of companies and developers creating artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, as well as clients who want cloud or hybrid environments.

Google Cloud has a 13% market share in the global cloud computing market, trailing both Amazon Web Services (29%) and Microsoft Azure (20%). The business is both lucrative and growing rapidly, reporting $15.15 billion in revenue in the third quarter, a 33% increase from the same period a year ago.

But Alphabet is much more than that as well. Alphabet earned $102.34 billion in revenue in the third quarter, with 72% of that coming from its powerful advertising network, which includes Google Search, YouTube advertising, and the Google Network. All in all, advertising revenues were up 12.6% from a year ago.

Why Alphabet makes sense in a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio

There are many similarities between Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet. All of them have strong ecosystems, loyal customers, and dominant market shares (Alphabet has a 90% share in global internet search, and its Chrome browser has a 73% market share.)

While Buffett isn't the most tech-savvy investor, he knows good businesses, and he's not afraid to change his mind. Alphabet provides multiple streams of revenue, strong profits, and has a long-term growth window -- making this AI stock an ideal pick for Berkshire Hathaway today.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Alphabet, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Alphabet, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) issued its third-quarter earnings report after the closing bell yesterday. And investors are still reeling from not only the numbers, but the commentary. Revenue was 12% higher on a year-over-year basis, but investors weren't pleased with the underlying figures.

Tesla stock fell 2% in morning trading before starting to rebound on heavy volume. Let's dive in and see what happened with three points to consider.

1. Tesla's automotive production numbers

The first thing that stands out is Tesla's automotive numbers. Automotive revenue was up 6% from a year ago, reaching $21.2 billion. And the number of vehicles Tesla delivered was up 9%, to 481,166. That was entirely to be expected, but not for a reason that's good for Tesla stock.

Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, had been on a push to drive up Tesla sales as much as possible in the quarter, citing the expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. But now that the credit expired on Sept. 30, analysts are expecting Tesla's EV sales numbers to drop accordingly. It will be difficult for Tesla to set another new record for deliveries next quarter.

A side note: While Tesla doesn't break out delivery figures for its infamous Cybertruck, it's clear that the 7,000-pound pickup isn't selling well. Tesla says its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV made up 96.7% of all its sales. The company's other offerings, including Cybertruck, Model X, Semi and Model S, collectively accounted for a mere 15,933 deliveries -- down 30% from a year ago.

Data source: Tesla

2. Tesla's sagging profit margin

Tesla is becoming a less-efficient company. Even though it delivered more vehicles, it spent a lot more to do so.

Operating expenses were up 50% from a year ago, reaching $3.43 billion, and operating margin fell from 10.8% a year ago to 5.8% in this quarter. That's why, even though Tesla's total revenues for the quarter hit $28.09 billion, up 12% from a year ago, its gross profits were only up 1%. Tesla attributed its lower margins to rising costs, weaker regulatory credit income, and sagging vehicle prices -- and those are issues that I don't see changing.

Tesla's generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings per share were $0.39, down 37% from last year when EPS was $0.62.

3. What Elon Musk said on the analyst call

Although Musk spent a lot of time pitching self-driving cars and the company's upcoming Optimus robots, he also made a pointed pitch for investors to grant him a revised compensation package, potentially worth $1 trillion, if the company's market capitalization grows to roughly $8.5 trillion. The proposal is opposed by two proxy advisors, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, but Musk said he needs to have greater influence in the company he founded. He currently owns about 15% of Tesla shares.

"I just don't feel comfortable building a robot army here, and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no frigging clue," Musk said. 

The package will be voted on at the company's shareholder meeting on Nov. 6.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Tesla. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) hit a record-setting milestone on Wednesday, July 9, becoming the first publicly traded company to reach $4 trillion in market capitalization. The semiconductor company briefly reached the landmark as Nvidia stock rose more than 2% in early trading. The market cap moved down to $3.97 trillion by mid-afternoon.

Let's put the achievement into perspective. There are only 10 companies in the world that have a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion, and Nvidia has surpassed them all in such a relatively short time. Nvidia itself was valued at less than $1 trillion just over 25 months ago.

What comes next? Does Nvidia seem like a lock to one day reach a $5 trillion market cap? Will investors see that happening in 2025?

Nvidia's amazing ride

If you're into personal computers, you've known about Nvidia for a while. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) were best known for years as the go-to product for gamers who wanted the best visual experience. Its products also got pulled into the growing interest in cryptocurrencies back in the late 2010s because they could be modified to help power the best cryptocurrency mining operations.

But it wasn't until late 2022 and early 2023, when generative artificial intelligence (AI) entered the public realm, that Nvidia stock exploded. Nvidia's GPUs are parallel processing chips, which means they can handle complex calculations that can be divided into smaller tasks and handled simultaneously.

AI calculations are performed in parallel processors, and Nvidia's GPUs can be combined into clusters to work faster and be more powerful. That's how the company came to dominate the AI space, as its GPUs account for roughly 92% of the market space, according to Jon Peddie Research.

Nvidia reached the $1 trillion mark on May 30, 2023, and the stock skyrocketed 239% for the year. Then in 2024, growth continued as Nvidia hit the $2 trillion mark on Feb. 23, 2024, and the $3 trillion mark less than four months later on June 5, 2024. For the full year, Nvidia stock rose 171% in 2024.

That brings us to now. It took a little more than a year for Nvidia's market cap to go from $3 trillion to $4 trillion, as the stock rose by 20% in that period.

Can Nvidia get to $5 trillion this year?

The best thing that Nvidia has going for it is that its GPUs are still flying off the shelves. CEO Jensen Huang said the company is seeing massive demand for its new Blackwell chips, which are 40 times more powerful than the popular Hopper chips.

Nvidia also sees a massive opportunity in the AI market as companies work to build out their data centers to train large language models (LLMs) to power generative AI products. The company has projected data center capital expenditures to increase from $400 billion in 2024 to more than $1 trillion in 2028 -- and Nvidia, as mentioned before, is very likely to get the lion's share of that business.

In addition, Nvidia's CUDA software platform is a huge advantage because it provides tools for developers working on AI models that are powered by Nvidia GPUs. It would be very expensive for any developer to switch to another platform, so Nvidia has a customer base that's locked in for years to come.

Now let's look at the numbers. To get to a $5 trillion valuation, the Nvidia stock price would need to go up another 25% by the end of the year -- to roughly $205 per share. Barclays analysts already have a price target of $200 for Nvidia, so it's not out of the question. Also, consider that the consensus analyst estimate for full-year earnings per share is $4.29, which is a 66% increase from full-year earnings in the company's fiscal 2025 (which ended Jan. 26).

That's more than enough to get to the magic number. And if Nvidia, which saw revenue growth up 69% year over year in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended April 27, 2025), can pull a similar number for the Q2 earnings report on Aug. 27, the timeline to get to $5 trillion could shorten to late this year.

The bottom line

It seems nearly certain that Nvidia will be a $5 trillion company, sooner rather than later. That's why I call Nvidia the one stock I would buy and hold forever. We probably won't see the $5 trillion mark until sometime in early 2026, but the August earnings report could make everyone readjust their thinking.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Nvidia reaches the $4 trillion mark. Can it hit $5 trillion in 2025? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock is on the move again, and for the wrong reasons. The automaker's stock fell 7% on Monday after Wedbush analyst Dan Ives issued a grim report in response to CEO Elon Musk's plans to start a new political party.

Regardless of whether you support Musk's plans or not -- or if you cheered or booed when he was working as President Donald Trump's right-hand man to shrink the size of the federal government with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) -- investors should be deeply concerned about Tesla's recent struggles. The stock price is down, deliveries are faltering, and the one-time darling of the electric vehicle movement is battling some significant headwinds.

If you're a Tesla stock owner, is this the time to sell? Or do you have faith that Musk can rally, and Tesla stock is just a bargain for long-term investors?

How did we get here?

The volatility in Tesla stock can be traced to the 2024 presidential campaign, when Musk put in $250 million of his own money to back Trump. He soon became a regular fixture at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and followed Trump on the campaign trail.

All that was extraordinary, considering the immense pressures on Musk's time: in addition to being CEO of Tesla, Musk heads the private aerospace company SpaceX; the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter); The Boring Company, which is involved in tunnel construction projects like the Las Vegas Convention Center loop; xAI, which is developing generative AI;, and Neuralink, which is dedicated to the development of brain-computer interfaces.

Then, when Trump took office in 2025, Musk joined the administration as head of the newly created DOGE. Officially classified as a temporary government employee, high-level Musk associates joined numerous government agencies and began cutting staff, cancelling contracts, and restructuring agencies.

But for Tesla, it came at a cost. So-called "Tesla takedown" protests began in the spring and included hundreds of demonstrations at Tesla showrooms around the country. Tesla's stock price, which finished 2024 strong as investors bet that Musk's relationship with the White House would lead to favorable treatment, tumbled rapidly, and is now down 25% on a year-to-date basis.

In addition, many people stopped buying Teslas -- hammering the company's bottom line. Tesla deliveries are down sharply so far this year from where they were a year ago.

Data source: Tesla quarterly reports.

Tesla will release its second-quarter earnings report on July 23. But if it's anything like the Q1 report, investors should brace for the worst. In the first quarter, Tesla reported $19.33 billion in revenue, down from $21.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Profits fell to $3.15 billion from $3.69 billion in the previous year, and earnings per share tumbled from $0.41 cents to $0.12 cents.

What did Dan Ives say?

Musk split badly from Trump in recent days as the White House pushed Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill." Musk says the newly signed law, which will add an estimated $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit, runs in opposition to DOGE's efforts to cut federal spending. He said the legislation will destroy millions of jobs and "gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future" -- an obvious reference to the law's elimination of electric vehicle mandates that made EVs more affordable.

Musk pledged to begin a new political party, the America Party, as Congress prepared to approve it, although it's unclear if he's taken any concrete steps to register the party since the law went into effect July 4. But his statements were enough for Webush's Ives, who has been a longtime Tesla bull, to issue a scathing report of concern on Monday:

Very simply, Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story. While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is [a] broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.

In a follow-up note on Tuesday, Ives wrote that Musk's battle with Trump risks a $1 trillion opportunity in autonomous vehicles. He recommended three things to right the ship: that Tesla's board step in to limit the amount of time Musk spends on politics, set up a special oversight committee to review Musk's political activities, and give Musk a greater stake in Tesla as an incentive to focus on the company's profits.

What investors should do next

Clearly, Tesla is at an inflection point. For investors, what happens next is more about how you feel about the company's CEO than how you feel about its vehicles.

If you believe that Tesla is being hurt by Musk -- and to be honest, leaving $1 trillion in autonomous vehicle sales is a huge issue -- then this is probably a good time to take your profits and exit Tesla. But if you are a Musk bull (and I know a lot of them), then this may be your best opportunity to buy a wounded company at a steep discount. But if that's your play, be prepared for a very volatile ride, and plan for a long-term horizon.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The post Dan Ives Says Elon Musk Is Dragging Tesla Down. Is It Time to Sell? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Tesla. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.