Stock Market

Stocks were rallying again Thursday, despite Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) stinker of a quarter. Even prominent Tesla bull Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said it was a “train wreck” and criticized Elon Musk and his team for failing to “step up like adults in the room.” Tesla plummeted more than 10% in midday trading, pushing its market capitalization further away from the trillion-dollar level in the process. The EV giant is now worth “only” about $585 billion.

Tesla’s woes prompted fund manager Sandy Villere III of Villere & Co. to tell me that instead of a Magnificent 7 of the Nasdaq, we now merely have a Sensational 6. But investors apparently don’t seem too concerned about Tesla’s woes hurting the rest of the market.

Magnificent 7 Stocks Shake Off Tesla’s Woes

In fact, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) were both up and are now each worth more than $3 trillion. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is near a record high and once again worth more than $1 trillion. The rest of the Magnificent 7 — Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google owner Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) — were all flat to slightly higher Thursday. The members of this tech trio are continuing to march toward the $2 trillion market cap milestone.

5 Mega-Cap Stocks to Watch

So yes, investors are more than willing to overlook Tesla’s troubles and focus on other mega-caps. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A, NYSE:BRK-B), which owns a big stake in Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD (OTCMKTS:BYDDY), is now at an all-time high and has a market cap of around $825 billion.

Three other blue chips, Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and chip behemoth Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), leapt ­­ahead of Tesla Thursday as well. Taiwan Semi, which recently reported extremely strong earnings, is benefiting from surging AI demand. It’s now worth about $610 billion. Broadcom is riding the AI wave too, pushing its market cap to about $590 billion. And Lilly, with a market cap of about $600 billion, is enjoying huge demand for its Mounjaro and Zepbound injectable weight loss drugs.

Credit card giant Visa (NYSE:V), which is also near a record high, is now worth more than $550 billion.

The Bottom Line: Introducing the Dynamic Dozen

So, if you take the Magnificent 7 and add Berkshire, TSM, Lilly, Broadcom, and Visa, you have a dynamic dozen companies that all have market caps above a half a trillion dollars. Several more companies may soon join that club too. Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) is now worth just shy of $470 billion. Visa rival Mastercard (NYSE:MA) has a market cap just north of $400 billion. Jamie Dimon-led JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT) are all not far from the $500 billion mark either.

So sorry, Tesla and Elon fans. It looks like investors are finding other large-cap stocks to embrace so far in 2024.

As of this writing, Paul R. La Monica did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Paul R. La Monica is a veteran financial journalist with nearly 30 years experience (including more than 20 at CNN) covering the stock market and other asset classes, the economy and other corporate and business news.

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