The end of the seven magnificent outperformers. This is the sensational headline that strategists love to splash across the front pages whenever these few stocks start to lose ground against the S&P 500.

This is what we saw in the first quarter, when the arrival of Chinese AI Deepseek, followed by the introduction of tariffs, led investors to reduce their exposure to large US tech stocks.

However, ultimately, the rebound in US markets seen in recent weeks has been driven by tech. Since the beginning of April, the Nasdaq has significantly outperformed the S&P 500, which itself outperformed the equal-weighted version of the index (the S&P 500 Equal Weighted), meaning that large caps are outperforming the index.

Over the past two months, the easing of trade tensions and Q1 results have reassured investors and enabled the indices to rebound.

Tech stocks were particularly eagerly awaited, as the arrival of Deepseek had raised concerns about the amounts invested by US companies. However, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all confirmed their plans to invest in AI infrastructure.

Nvidia, meanwhile, has been able to offset the impact of export restrictions to the Chinese market and continues to post stratospheric levels of growth and profitability.

Apple stands alone

Only Apple continues to lose ground. The group is at the center of Donald Trump's trade war, as the vast majority of iPhones are produced in China.

This comes at a time when the Cupertino-based group is already facing a slowdown in growth for several quarters and also appears to be lagging behind in the development of AI.

To cope with trade tensions with China, Apple plans to transfer part of its production to India. The aim is to assemble all iPhones destined for the US market there by the end of 2026.

Donald Trump doesn't like this move, however: he said at the end of May: "I have long told Tim Cook of Apple that I expect iPhones sold in the US to be made in the US, not in India or anywhere else. If that doesn't happen, Apple will have to pay at least 25% tariffs in the US."

Since the beginning of the year, the Apple stock has fallen by almost 20% and is now "only" the third largest company by market capitalization, behind Microsoft and Nvidia.