The new year has so far not been kind to the share price of Big Tech stocks, particularly the so-called Magnificent 7. These seven companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—are America’s tech crown jewels. 

Combined, they have their hands in the hottest areas of tech, including artificial intelligence, mobile computing, chipmaking, and transportation. Yet all of these tech companies have seen their share prices decline since the beginning of the year. Here are some possible reasons why.

The Magnificent 7 is seeing red in 2026

As of this writing, there isn’t a single Magnificent 7 stock in the green for 2026. Their year-to-date returns are as follows:

While all seven companies have their own strengths (Amazon, e-commerce; Nvidia, AI chips; Apple, smartphones, etc.), they share one thread: they are traded on the already tech-heavy Nasdaq. 

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And given the massive market caps of these companies, all seven have an outsized impact on the Nasdaq as a whole. Keeping that in mind, it’s little surprise that the NASDAQ Composite itself is down over 3% year to date as well.

The question is why? Here are two of the most likely reasons.

AI capex spend is immense

In the business world, capex refers to a company’s capital expenditure—how much money a business spends on building out assets in order to grow its business, and thus its finances.

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