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Mag 7 Down. These 5 AI Stocks Up. Here's Why.

Mag 7 Down. These 5 AI Stocks Up. Here's Why.

March 19, 2026

The AI Investing Pulse

March 19th, 2026

In this Week’s Edition:

Analysis - Mag 7 Down. These 5 AI Stocks Up. Here's Why
Stock Ideas - Devon Energy: The Cheap AI Power Play Nobody Is Talking About
News - Morningstar Raises Nvidia Fair Value to $260 After GTC 2026
Startups - Swarmer Surges 520% in Best US Tech IPO Since Newsmax
Trends - The Quantum Era Arrives: Investment Case Gains Momentum
Other News - What Harvard and Microsoft Are Teaching Leaders about Winning with AI

Mag 7 Down. These 5 AI Stocks Up. Here's Why.

Meta is preparing to spend up to $135 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Tencent is doubling its AI budget. Nvidia just delivered its most ambitious GTC conference yet. And every single Magnificent Seven stock is in negative territory for the year.

As of late February 2026, the Mag 7 were down 5.1% year-to-date as a group, whilst the rest of the S&P 500 edged up 0.5%. Microsoft has shed over 18% since January. The market is telling a very different story from the press releases. So what is actually happening with institutional positioning in AI's biggest names, and where is the money actually going?

The Smart Money Was Quietly Rotating

In Q4 2025, several well-known hedge fund managers trimmed their largest AI holdings. David Tepper cut his Nvidia and Amazon positions whilst boosting his Micron stake by 250%. Tiger Global trimmed both Microsoft and Nvidia. Elliott Management reportedly purchased put options on Nvidia representing approximately $195 million in downside exposure.

This is not a story of funds abandoning AI. It is a rotation down the stack: from chip designers toward memory suppliers, from software giants toward infrastructure operators, from obvious names toward less-covered companies processing the actual demand. Tepper's Micron pivot is instructive. Micron's HBM supply is reportedly sold out for all of 2026, and the CEO expects the data centre HBM market to nearly triple to $100 billion by 2028.

The Capex Is Not Slowing Down

The paradox of this moment is that whilst Mag 7 share prices are under pressure, the fundamental case for AI investment is stronger than at any point in this cycle.

Meta confirmed 2026 AI capex of $115 to $135 billion, roughly double its 2025 spending. Tencent announced plans to double its AI budget. Morningstar raised its Nvidia fair value to $260 following GTC 2026. Nebius Group, a GPU cloud operator signed a $12 billion compute deal with Meta and a $17 billion partnership with Nvidia, then fell 7% as the market worried about the $3.75 billion in convertible debt raised to fund the buildout. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital has argued publicly that mainstream investors are still systematically underestimating AI's structural disruption. The capital deployment data suggests the companies themselves share his conviction.

This Week’s Five AI Leaders

The five stocks below are the top-performing AI plays from the AIIP universe over the past seven days, ranked by 1-week return.

They span three tiers of the AIIP scoring model. Watchlist stocks meet both fundamental quality and relative strength thresholds: the highest-conviction tier. Momentum stocks are leading on price action. Fundamental stocks carry strong business quality that the market has not yet fully repriced. Past performance of stocks meeting these criteria is not indicative of future results.

Micron Technology, Inc. $MU ( ▲ 0.01% )

Sector / Industry: Technology | Semiconductors
AI Stack Layer: Hardware and Infrastructure (Memory and Storage for AI)
Market Cap: $520bn
1 Week: +13.91% | YTD: +61.78%
AIIP Ranking: Watchlist

The AI Thesis Micron is the dominant supplier of High Bandwidth Memory, the component that determines how fast AI chips can access and process data. Every major AI accelerator, from Nvidia's Blackwell to AMD's Instinct series, requires HBM, and Micron's entire production capacity for 2026 is reportedly already sold. As agentic AI workloads multiply and inference demand accelerates, the requirement for fast, dense memory grows with it. Micron sits at a chokepoint in the AI stack that most investors are only beginning to price in.

Current Picture MU is up 13.91% this week and 61.78% year-to-date, making it one of the best-performing AI names in the AIIP universe in 2026. The Watchlist ranking reflects both strong fundamental quality and sustained institutional demand. This is precisely where the rotation flagged in Q4 2025 filings is landing: David Tepper boosted his Micron position by 250% whilst cutting Nvidia. The stock's price action over the past week reflects the institutional repositioning that those filings indicated was already under way.

As this article was being finalised, Micron reported Q2 2026 results after market close on 18 March: adjusted EPS of $12.20 against analyst expectations of $9.19, and revenue of $23.9 billion, up 196% year-on-year. The stock fell approximately 4% in pre-market trading on 19 March. The reasons cited were higher-than-expected capital expenditure guidance of $25 billion and geopolitical noise following an attack on Qatar energy infrastructure. Record earnings. Falling share price…

Amkor Technology, Inc. $AMKR ( ▲ 1.14% )

Sector / Industry: Technology | Semiconductor Packaging
AI Stack Layer: Hardware and Infrastructure (AI in Chip Packaging and Testing)
Market Cap: $11.6bn
1 Week: +13.57% | YTD: +18.94%
AIIP Ranking: Momentum

The AI Thesis Amkor is the world's largest independent provider of outsourced semiconductor packaging and testing, the final step before a chip ships. Advanced packaging has become a critical bottleneck in AI chip production. Nvidia's Blackwell, Apple's M-series and AMD's AI accelerators all require increasingly complex packaging that Amkor specialises in. As the AI chip supply chain scales, the packaging layer is becoming a strategic constraint, and Amkor is one of the few independent operators at scale.

Current Picture Up 13.57% this week and 18.94% year-to-date, Amkor is outperforming the majority of AI software names that receive far more coverage. The Momentum ranking reflects sustained institutional demand for a business that is genuinely difficult to replicate. At $46 per share and a market cap of $11.6bn, it remains well below the radar of most retail AI investors.

Nebius Group N.V. $NBIS ( ▲ 1.92% )

Sector / Industry: Technology | Cloud and AI Infrastructure
AI Stack Layer: Hardware and Infrastructure (Cloud and AI Processing)
Market Cap: $30bn
1 Week: +9.74% | YTD: +41.64%
AIIP Ranking: Momentum

The AI Thesis Nebius Group is a GPU cloud infrastructure company spun out of Yandex in 2024, operating large-scale GPU clusters built for AI training and inference workloads. In March 2026, it signed a $12 billion compute supply agreement with Meta and a separate $17 billion partnership with Nvidia, two of the largest AI infrastructure deals ever announced. Its Momentum ranking reflects the institutional repricing that has followed those announcements.

Current Picture NBIS fell approximately 7% on Tuesday after announcing a $3.75 billion convertible debt raise to fund data centre construction. The market read dilution; the company is reading a $29 billion demand signal from two of the world's biggest AI spenders. Up 9.74% on the week and 41.64% year-to-date despite Tuesday's drop.

Lemonade, Inc. $LMND ( ▼ 3.66% )

Sector / Industry: Financial | Insurance, Property and Casualty
AI Stack Layer: Application and Edge (AI in Insurance, Claims Automation)
Market Cap: $4.9bn
1 Week: +21.80% | YTD: -9.50%
AIIP Ranking: Fundamental

The AI Thesis Lemonade is the only publicly traded insurance company built entirely on AI from inception. Unlike incumbents retrofitting AI tools onto legacy systems, Lemonade's underwriting, claims processing and customer interactions are AI-native by design. Its AI model, Maya, handles the majority of customer interactions without human involvement, and claims are settled in seconds in many cases. This structural cost advantage compounds over time as the model trains on more data, a flywheel that traditional insurers cannot easily replicate.

Current Picture Up 21.80% this week, the strongest weekly return in this selection, Lemonade remains down 9.50% year-to-date. The Fundamental ranking reflects genuine growth quality that the market has not yet fully committed to repricing.

Arm Holdings plc $ARM ( ▲ 0.83% )

Sector / Industry: Technology | Semiconductors
AI Stack Layer: Hardware and Infrastructure (Semiconductors, AI-Specific Chips)
Market Cap: $136bn
1 Week: +11.50% | YTD: +17.43%
AIIP Ranking: Fundamental

The AI Thesis ARM designs the CPU architectures that underpin virtually all mobile and embedded AI processing. As AI moves to the edge, across smartphones, IoT devices and industrial automation, ARM's instruction set is the universal language of silicon. Its royalty-per-chip model means revenue scales directly with the volume of AI-capable devices shipped, and that volume is growing in every category. The company is quietly positioned at the base of the entire edge AI stack.

Current Picture Up 11.50% this week and 17.43% year-to-date, ARM is finding institutional support at a valuation that reset significantly from its 2024 peak. The Fundamental ranking reflects a business where the structural AI thesis is clear but the market has not yet fully committed to repricing it. At $128 per share and a market cap of $136bn, ARM is not a small-cap play, but relative to its position in the AI infrastructure stack, it remains one of the less-discussed names in the conversation.

Final Take

The pattern in this week's data is consistent: the AI investment case tends to be strongest where the coverage is thinnest. Micron was appearing in Q4 2025 institutional filings whilst analysts wrote about Nvidia. Amkor packages the chips that run AI without featuring in a single mainstream round-up. Nebius closes $29 billion in compute deals and falls on debt news. Lemonade is the only AI-native insurer in existence and trades at a fraction of legacy carriers. ARM underpins the entire edge AI stack and barely gets a mention.

This week delivered two live examples of the central thesis. Nebius fell 7% after announcing the debt raise that funds its $29 billion in committed AI infrastructure deals. Micron reported Q2 earnings that beat on every metric, EPS $12.20 against expectations of $9.19, revenue up 196% year-on-year, and fell 4% in pre-market on capex guidance and Qatar noise. In both cases, the business reality and the share price moved in opposite directions within the same news cycle.

The pessimism in this market is real. It is also almost entirely concentrated in seven obvious names. The AIIP model exists to surface what sits beneath that noise, and this week, the data is unambiguous about where the repricing is actually happening.

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^{Not Investment Advice}^{: This content is provided by AI Investing Pulse for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, a personal recommendation, or an invitation or inducement to engage in any investment activity.}^{Not Regulated}^{: AI Investing Pulse is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom, is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state securities regulator in the United States, and is not registered with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) or any provincial securities commission in Canada.}^{Methodology Disclosure}^{: The AIIP Index scores and rankings mentioned in this article are generated by a proprietary quantitative methodology based on publicly available financial data. Our full methodology is explained in the "About AIIP" section below. These scores are objective system outputs, not recommendations or endorsements.}^{Risk Warning}^{: Investing in stocks involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance of stocks, scores, or rankings is not indicative of future results. Stock prices can decline as well as rise, and you may lose some or all of your invested capital.}^{Third-Party References}^{: References to analyst opinions, bank research, media publications, or the term "picks" refer to third-party selections, not AIIP recommendations. We aggregate this information for educational analysis only.}^{Seek Professional Advice}^{: Always consult a qualified, regulated financial professional who understands your personal circumstances before making any investment decisions. Consider your individual financial situation, risk tolerance, investment objectives, and time horizon.}

^{About AIIP -}^The^{AIIP Index}^{tracks 173 AI-focused public companies across the full AI stack, serving as our benchmark for sector performance. All scores are proprietary and calculated using data from}^{Finbox (powered by S&P Global Intelligence)}^.^{AIIP Total Score}^{(0–100) combines metrics for sales and EPS growth, financial quality, and valuation to assess overall business strength.}^{AIIP Relative Strength (RS) Score}^{measures a stock’s price performance relative to the AIIP 173 AI stocks.}^{Ranking Status}^{is based on score combinations:}^Fundamental^{: Total Score ≥ 70, RS < 80.}^Momentum^{: RS ≥ 80, Total Score < 70.}^Watchlist^{: Total Score ≥ 70 and RS ≥ 80}

TOP AI STOCKS PERFORMANCE

COMPANY	SECTOR	WEEKLY
Lemonade (LMND)	Technology	21.8%
Micron Technology (MU)	Technology	13.9%
Amkor Technology (AMKR)	Technology	13.6%

TOP AI ETFs PERFORMANCE

ETFs	SECTOR	WEEKLY
Roundhill (CHAT)	Gen AI & Tech	4.4%
iShares (ARTY)	Future AI & Tech	2.9%
Robo Global (THNQ)	Global AI	2.8%

AI Stock Ideas

Devon Energy: The Cheap AI Power Play Nobody Is Talking About – Motley Fool

Devon Energy (DVN) has signed a 7-year gas supply deal. Trading at roughly 11x earnings against Constellation Energy's 40x, and mid-merger with Coterra Energy, Devon is being positioned as the cheaper, contracted route into AI energy infrastructure.

Palantir vs. Nvidia: Which AI Giant Is Actually Cheaper Right Now? – Yahoo Finance

Both Palantir and Nvidia posted strong Q4 results. On valuation, the gap is stark: Nvidia trades at 24.7x forward earnings against Palantir's 108.4x. Zacks rates both as Buy, but argues Nvidia currently offers the more attractive entry point on a price-to-earnings basis.

Cathie Wood Adds $2m of Tempus AI at Half Its Peak Price – Yahoo Finance

ARK Invest bought 41,906 shares of Tempus AI (TEM) across two days, worth approximately $2.1 million, as the stock traded near $50, down more than 50% from its October 2024 peak of $104. Tempus AI is now ARK's second-largest holding in ARKG, combining AI diagnostics with pharmaceutical data licensing.

AI Stocks & ETFs News

Morningstar Raises Nvidia Fair Value to $260 After GTC 2026 – Morningstar

Morningstar lifted its Nvidia fair value estimate from $240 to $260 following GTC 2026, where CEO Jensen Huang laid out a path to $1 trillion in cumulative chip sales by 2027. The new Vera Rubin platform, spanning seven chips and five rack-scale systems, is designed around agentic AI inference at scale.

Data Centres in 2026: A More Selective Investment Landscape – Forbes

AI infrastructure investment is shifting from broad megacap exposure toward specific operators, power managers and REITs. Vertiv projects 28% organic sales growth in 2026, while Nebius targets a revenue run rate of $7-9bn by year-end, with Applied Digital and data centre REITs also drawing investor attention.

Tencent Beats Revenue Forecasts, Plans to Double AI Spend – CNBC

Tencent reported full-year 2025 revenue of 751.8 billion yuan ($109bn), ahead of analyst estimates of 750.7 billion yuan. The company spent 18 billion yuan on AI in 2025 and plans to double that figure in 2026,

Meta Eyes 20% Workforce Cut to Fund $135bn AI Capex Plan – HR Leader

Meta is weighing reductions of up to 20% of its global workforce, potentially 15,000 roles, as its 2026 AI capital expenditure reaches $115-135bn, roughly double 2025 spending. The company's stock rose nearly 3% on the news, with investors treating the cuts as a signal of margin improvement rather than distress.

AI Startups

Swarmer Surges 520% in Best US Tech IPO Since Newsmax – Yahoo Finance

AI drone software firm Swarmer Inc. (SWMR) closed up 520% at $31 on its NYSE debut on 17 March, against an IPO price of $5 per share. The Austin-based company's platform has been deployed in over 100,000 combat missions in Ukraine since April 2024, giving it one of the most documented real-world track records in the AI defence sector.

Hamilton Lane: Public AI Investing Is a Concentration Trap – FinNews

Hamilton Lane's 2026 Market Overview argues that index-based AI investing funnels capital into a small cluster of megacap stocks, limiting exposure to the broader ecosystem. Private markets, including venture capital and secondaries, offer access to a wider set of AI applications and infrastructure at different risk and liquidity profiles.

Howard Marks: Investors Are Still Underestimating AI's Impact – TechFlow

Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks argues that mainstream investors are consistently undervaluing AI's structural disruption across asset classes. He positions AI-driven transformation as a durable megatrend, pushing back on growing scepticism about valuations being stretched.

AI Trends

The Quantum Era Arrives: Investment Case Gains Momentum – Forbes

The global quantum computing market is forecast to reach $1.08bn in 2026, up from $0.8bn in 2025, with a 35.2% CAGR projected through 2035. AI and quantum are increasingly viewed as converging strategic priorities, with accelerating enterprise adoption across finance, pharmaceuticals and defence.

Enterprise AI Converges on Augmentation Over Replacement – ITWeb

Large enterprises are deploying AI to handle routine, data-intensive tasks while keeping judgment, client engagement and strategic decisions in human hands. Despite 89% of executives acknowledging the need for AI skills development, only 6% have begun upskilling programmes in any meaningful way.

Others

What Harvard and Microsoft Are Teaching Leaders about Winning with AI – Yahoo Finance

The Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Business School and Microsoft jointly launched the Frontier Firm AI Initiative to research human-AI collaboration and upskill C-suite leadership at scale. The programme aims to equip organisations with frameworks for redesigning operations around AI-enabled workflows.

HR and L&D Leaders Must Redesign Work for the AI Era – TechRSeries

AI has compressed business cycles to a pace that annual workforce planning programmes cannot match. Analytical thinking, resilience and adaptability now rank as the most in-demand human skills globally, as AI absorbs routine cognitive tasks and organisations struggle to close the upskilling gap.

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