'Tremendous potential': Growth investor is underweight the Magnificent Seven, but likes one tech giant

Published Sun, Nov 5 20237:04 PM EST

Amala Balakrishner @in/amala-balakrishner @_amalabk

The "Magnificent Seven" stocks have proved popular this year, but one growth investor says he is underweight the group. The Big Tech stocks known as the "Magnificent Seven" are Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , Meta , Microsoft , Nvidia and Tesla . So far, the stocks are sitting on hefty gains this year, even as some of them may have felt the pressure of the recent tech sell-off following mixed earnings reports. "The Magnificent has done well and are poised to continue to do well because they have [a] fortress-like balance sheets and they're highly profitable. They used the past two years post Covid to get more efficient, but they also have tremendous opportunities ahead in terms of artificial intelligence," Jonathan Curtis told CNBC's " Squawk Box Asia " on Friday. However, he said investors needed to be a "little bit more curious and more cautious" on the tech mega-caps. "We own [many of these stocks] but we are underweight on it and overweight on some attractively valued small mid-cap names down the market spectrum," the incoming chief investment officer at investment firm Franklin Equity Group said. Pro Microsoft There is, however, one name among the Magnificent Seven that Curtis likes a lot, and that's Microsoft. He sees opportunities in the tech giant's Microsoft 365 Copilot feature – its artificial intelligence supplement to core products such as Word, Excel and other Office programs. It costs $30 per person per month, with sales commencing last Wednesday. Estimating that the commercial Office feature would have around half a billion users, Curtis said it has the potential to add $180 billion in "incremental revenue" to Microsoft. For reference, the software giant generated $180 billion in revenue in 2020 and $198 billion in 2022 . "Firms like Microsoft have tremendous growth potential ahead on this AI opportunity and I do not think that that is accounted for in the valuation of a firm like Microsoft. If Microsoft does well with generative AI, then the underlying infrastructure providers in the cloud — firms like Nvidia — estimates are way too low for those companies as well," Curtis said. Year-to-date, shares in Microsoft are up around 45%. In contrast, shares in Nvidia — something of a poster child for artificial intelligence — are up close to 200%. MSFT NVDA YTD mountain Year-to-date share movement of Microsoft and Nvidia "It doesn't matter where the stock has been. It's where the stock is going and what the earnings power is going to be going forward. And I think both in the case of Microsoft and Nvidia, their significant earnings power add to those businesses," Curtis said. Of the 54 analysts covering Microsoft, over 90% have a buy or overweight call on the stock, at a mean target price of $404.90, according to FactSet. This gives the shares an upside of around 15% from their Nov. 3 close.