Can the 7 sisters still be bought?

It's completely normal to feel this kind of "fear of heights" and "risk-averse" sentiment. When we examine the ultimate technological changes ten or twenty years from now with a magnifying glass, every seemingly indestructible giant is full of holes.

But if you conclude "the Magnificent Seven in the US stock market can't be bought anymore," you've fallen into the trap of "mistaking long-term academic projections for short-term trading guides."

The real world of investing is extremely cold and focused on the present. Not only are the giants "buyable," but for a considerable period in the future, they will remain the safest harbor for global capital. The core logic behind this has three main points:

1. The Ultimate Truth of the Nasdaq 100: You're Buying the "Throne," Not the "King"

This is the most powerful weapon for ordinary investors to overcome the technology cycle—the automatic metabolism (self-cleansing mechanism) of the index.

If you bet your entire fortune solely on the stock of "Google," then you indeed need to worry every day that it might be disrupted by OpenAI. However, if you buy the Nasdaq 100 Index or the S&P 500 Index, the logic changes completely:

• Ruthless Elimination: The Nasdaq 100 has no sentiment of "respecting the old." If Google truly falls behind due to AI and its market value keeps shrinking, Nasdaq officials will mercilessly kick it down from its high-weight position, or even eventually remove it from the index.

• Coronation of the New King: At the same time, the "new giant" that defeats Google (whatever its name will be in the future, as long as it goes public and grows big) will automatically be included in the Nasdaq 100 and occupy a very high weight.

• Conclusion: Buying an index essentially means "always going long on the few dozen most profitable companies of the era." Giants may die, but the "throne" the giants sit on will always be there. You don't need to bet on who will survive to the end; the index will automatically help you sell the declining losers and buy the newly rising leaders.

2. The Brutal "Tyranny of Compute": The Magnificent Seven Monopolize the Entry Ticket to AI

Although AI in its ultimate form may disrupt the giants, in the 5 to 10 years leading to that ultimate form, this is a game only the giants can afford to play.

• Extremely High Capital Barrier: Training the most advanced AI large models now starts with tens of thousands of NVIDIA's H100/B200 chips, plus terrifying electricity costs and the annual salaries of top scientists, easily requiring tens of billions or even over a hundred billion dollars in capital expenditure (CapEx).

• The Reality of Monopoly: The number of companies globally that can cough up this kind of "cash flow" can be counted on one hand—Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple. No matter how creative a startup is, without money to buy compute power, it's just armchair theorizing (this is also why OpenAI could only "sell itself" to Microsoft in exchange for compute).

• Conclusion: Before the old order is completely broken, not only will the Magnificent Seven not die, they will instead use their cash and compute power advantage to either acquire or outcompete all threatening startup sprouts. For a considerable transition period, they will still be the super money-printing machines with the strongest ability to attract capital.

3. The Time Gap Between "Corporate Lifespan" and "Investment Cycle"

In business history, the "death" of a monopolistic giant is very slow, usually a "slow bleed" measured in decades.

• Think about Yahoo, Nokia back in the day, or even Intel in the PC era. After their core moats were broken, they could still maintain huge revenues for several years, even paying generous dividends.

• Microsoft and Google have hundreds of billions of dollars in cash flow on their books. Even if their business models are proven to be heading towards obsolescence in 10 years, during this period they will still create enormous wealth for current shareholders through stock buybacks, dividends, and other means.

• Conclusion: We are making 5 to 15-year financial plans, not predicting the history of technology 50 years from now. As long as the giants can maintain monopoly profits within your investment lifecycle, they are excellent underlying assets.