Micron is America's hottest stock, up 762% in a year and worth more than a trillion dollars. That's after the stock fell 13% on Tuesday amid a selloff in AI-related companies. Its earnings report after the bell will be watched closely. For now, at least, it looks like a tech stock rout is over. Stock futures are mixed and oil prices are lower overnight as Iran talks continue.
📈 Follow our live markets data and coverage.
Paging Rip Van Winkle
Now that's what they call "stocks for the long run."
Wharton School finance professor Jeremy Siegel, a cheerleader for staying invested as the 1990s bull market bubbled higher, made a surprising argument at the time. The boom-and-bust Nifty Fifty stocks of the early 1970s, long trotted out as a cautionary tale of falling in love with one group, weren't so bad.
And he was right -- as long as you held on. By 1997, a quarter-century later, the group of "one decision" stocks had recovered from their losses to post handsome returns just shy of owning the entire S&P 500.
A few have since vanished -- Polaroid, Sears and J.C. Penney -- but many remain household names, including Eli Lilly, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, IBM, Dow Chemical and McDonald's. All were large, stable companies in 1972, which is why they were embraced by brokers and fund managers when the rest of the market was scuffling. Small companies had been especially out of favor.
They sound a lot like the dominant stocks of the past few years, the Magnificent Seven. In both 2023 and 2024, more than half of the S&P 500's return came from them alone. But they started losing momentum last year and are trailing the rest of the market so far in 2026.
Will we be kicking ourselves in the year 2050 for not buying Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Nvidia shares to the exclusion of everything else?
Comparisons often turn to valuation. The Nifty Fifty fetched about 47 times earnings at their peak, which is higher than a simple average of today's champs. A multiple of revenue, on the other hand, makes the current wonder stocks seem much more expensive at 11 times trailing sales.
Sentiment trumps value in the short run. If the Magnificent Seven or any other hot theme were to trail the market as badly as the Nifty Fifty did in the mid-1970s, many investors wouldn't stick around until they caught up. It's much easier and cheaper today for individuals to sell and move on to the next thing than it was 50 years ago.
And, even if the Magnificent Seven are as resilient as those blue chips of yesteryear, it's unlikely they'll have as smooth a ride. The early 1970s group spanned industrials, consumer goods, retail and technology. The Magnificent Seven are far less diversified, lifted to some extent by the same trend: artificial intelligence.
Yes, AI is transformative, and companies like Nvidia are exceptional. The same was said about the internet and Cisco, which became the world's most valuable company in 2000. It had a superb CEO, dominated its market and its sales kept growing, but Cisco's shares only regained their peak last year, a quarter century later.
There's no such thing as a one-decision stock.
This is an edition of the Markets A.M. newsletter, preparing you for the trading day ahead with expert insight into the companies and industries set to move markets. If you're not subscribed, sign up here.
Stocks I'm Watching
Cerebras Systems : The chip maker, which went public in May, said it expects its operating margins to remain negative and under pressure through the end of the year. Shares slumped nearly 14% premarket.
FedEx : The shipping company logged higher revenue in its latest quarter, but profit ticked down, knocking its shares in premarket trading.
Rheinmetall : The arms maker's shares dove 16% in Frankfurt after media outlets reported Germany is abandoning plans to build a new warship model, sinking one of the biggest projects in the company's pipeline. Rheinmetall didn't immediately comment.
🔎 Alphabet : The Google parent will be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average beginning Monday, the index's operator, S&P Global, said late Tuesday. Moving out to make room: Verizon Communications .
One Big Chart
AI "hyperscalers" among the Magnificent Seven need lots of electricity for their ambitious plans. Amazon and Google parent Alphabet are in pole position in securing it.
What I'm Reading
-- China is luring the world to the yuan, and hobbling Western sanctions in
the process. (WSJ)
-- Recent inflation has taken a larger psychological toll on Europeans than
Americans. Many are terrified of spending, damping the economy. (WSJ)
-- Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, cultivated a friendship with
President Trump that benefited the family's tech and media businesses. A
$45 million donation didn't hurt either. (WSJ)
-- Retirees, or those soon to be retired, have probably heard of the "4%
rule." There's a better way. (WSJ)
-- The World Cup highlights a lot of the behavioral foibles that hamper us
as investors. (Behavioural Investment)
Today in Markets History
📰 On this day in 1964, the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, inaugurated the Picturephone, speaking from the National Geographic Building in Washington and appearing on a tiny screen in New York City's Grand Central Terminal. A call cost $16 for the first three minutes between New York and Washington and $27 between Chicago and New York. AT&T spent about $500 million to develop it.
Beyond the Newsroom
WSJ | Buy Side: Our guide to the top home and kitchen deals from Amazon's Prime Day sale.
About Me
Business and finance have fascinated me for a long time. Before writing this newsletter, I edited The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street team for a decade, wrote two investment books and managed a team of stock analysts at a global investment bank.
The Markets A.M. newsletter prepares you for the trading day ahead, with expert insight into the companies and industries set to move markets. Send your feedback to markets.am@wsj.com (if you're reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply). For a recap of the day when the markets close, sign up for Markets P.M.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
By Spencer Jakab
Micron is America's hottest stock, up 762% in a year and worth more than a trillion dollars. That's after the stock fell 13% on Tuesday amid a selloff in AI-related companies. Its earnings report after the bell will be watched closely. For now, at least, it looks like a tech stock rout is over. Stock futures are mixed and oil prices are lower overnight as Iran talks continue.
📈 Follow our live markets data and coverage.
Paging Rip Van Winkle
Now that's what they call "stocks for the long run."
Wharton School finance professor Jeremy Siegel, a cheerleader for staying invested as the 1990s bull market bubbled higher, made a surprising argument at the time. The boom-and-bust Nifty Fifty stocks of the early 1970s, long trotted out as a cautionary tale of falling in love with one group, weren't so bad.
And he was right -- as long as you held on. By 1997, a quarter-century later, the group of "one decision" stocks had recovered from their losses to post handsome returns just shy of owning the entire S&P 500.
A few have since vanished -- Polaroid, Sears and J.C. Penney -- but many remain household names, including Eli Lilly, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, IBM, Dow Chemical and McDonald's. All were large, stable companies in 1972, which is why they were embraced by brokers and fund managers when the rest of the market was scuffling. Small companies had been especially out of favor.
They sound a lot like the dominant stocks of the past few years, the Magnificent Seven. In both 2023 and 2024, more than half of the S&P 500's return came from them alone. But they started losing momentum last year and are trailing the rest of the market so far in 2026.
Will we be kicking ourselves in the year 2050 for not buying Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Nvidia shares to the exclusion of everything else?
Comparisons often turn to valuation. The Nifty Fifty fetched about 47 times earnings at their peak, which is higher than a simple average of today's champs. A multiple of revenue, on the other hand, makes the current wonder stocks seem much more expensive at 11 times trailing sales.
Sentiment trumps value in the short run. If the Magnificent Seven or any other hot theme were to trail the market as badly as the Nifty Fifty did in the mid-1970s, many investors wouldn't stick around until they caught up. It's much easier and cheaper today for individuals to sell and move on to the next thing than it was 50 years ago.
And, even if the Magnificent Seven are as resilient as those blue chips of yesteryear, it's unlikely they'll have as smooth a ride. The early 1970s group spanned industrials, consumer goods, retail and technology. The Magnificent Seven are far less diversified, lifted to some extent by the same trend: artificial intelligence.
Yes, AI is transformative, and companies like Nvidia are exceptional. The same was said about the internet and Cisco, which became the world's most valuable company in 2000. It had a superb CEO, dominated its market and its sales kept growing, but Cisco's shares only regained their peak last year, a quarter century later.
There's no such thing as a one-decision stock.
This is an edition of the Markets A.M. newsletter, preparing you for the trading day ahead with expert insight into the companies and industries set to move markets. If you're not subscribed, sign up here.
Stocks I'm Watching
Cerebras Systems : The chip maker, which went public in May, said it expects its operating margins to remain negative and under pressure through the end of the year. Shares slumped nearly 14% premarket.
FedEx : The shipping company logged higher revenue in its latest quarter, but profit ticked down, knocking its shares in premarket trading.
Rheinmetall : The arms maker's shares dove 16% in Frankfurt after media outlets reported Germany is abandoning plans to build a new warship model, sinking one of the biggest projects in the company's pipeline. Rheinmetall didn't immediately comment.
🔎 Alphabet : The Google parent will be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average beginning Monday, the index's operator, S&P Global, said late Tuesday. Moving out to make room: Verizon Communications .
One Big Chart
AI "hyperscalers" among the Magnificent Seven need lots of electricity for their ambitious plans. Amazon and Google parent Alphabet are in pole position in securing it.
What I'm Reading
-- China is luring the world to the yuan, and hobbling Western sanctions in
the process. (WSJ)
-- Recent inflation has taken a larger psychological toll on Europeans than
Americans. Many are terrified of spending, damping the economy. (WSJ)
-- Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, cultivated a friendship with
President Trump that benefited the family's tech and media businesses. A
$45 million donation didn't hurt either. (WSJ)
-- Retirees, or those soon to be retired, have probably heard of the "4%
rule." There's a better way. (WSJ)
-- The World Cup highlights a lot of the behavioral foibles that hamper us
as investors. (Behavioural Investment)
Today in Markets History
📰 On this day in 1964, the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, inaugurated the Picturephone, speaking from the National Geographic Building in Washington and appearing on a tiny screen in New York City's Grand Central Terminal. A call cost $16 for the first three minutes between New York and Washington and $27 between Chicago and New York. AT&T spent about $500 million to develop it.
Beyond the Newsroom
WSJ | Buy Side: Our guide to the top home and kitchen deals from Amazon's Prime Day sale.
About Me
Business and finance have fascinated me for a long time. Before writing this newsletter, I edited The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street team for a decade, wrote two investment books and managed a team of stock analysts at a global investment bank.
The Markets A.M. newsletter prepares you for the trading day ahead, with expert insight into the companies and industries set to move markets. Send your feedback to markets.am@wsj.com (if you're reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply). For a recap of the day when the markets close, sign up for Markets P.M.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 24, 2026 06:38 ET (10:38 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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