Mag 7 Weekly: Nvidia's $96 Billion Quarter and Meta's Legal Lift
This week the Mag 7 finally stopped pretending the calendar was empty and that every name still moved as one trade. Nvidia (NVDA) reported after Wednesday's close with the kind of quarter that resets every other conversation on the board, while Meta Platforms (META) finally cleared a legal overhang that had been hanging over the stock for months. Microsoft (MSFT) quietly posted the cleanest regular-session week in the group. The same seven names are still under one label, but one night now matters more than the rest of the tape combined.
Nvidia closed the regular session near $210, down about 4% on the week into the report, because the market had already spent days pricing the risk of a soft guide. Then the results arrived with enough force to flip the narrative that had been building all week. Revenue more than doubled to $96.2 billion. Data center sales hit $89 billion. Next-quarter sales were guided around $108 billion. The real jolt came later on the call when management pointed to about 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028, well above the mid-40s pace Wall Street had been modeling.
Meta closed near $576, up about 5.5% on the week after settling a landmark child-safety case with dozens of U.S. states for a package in the mid-to-high teens of billions. Microsoft finished near $496 and up about 2.5% for the week without needing a headline of its own. Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Tesla (TSLA) all finished soft on the week while Nvidia owned the calendar. Here is the full scoreboard through the August 26 regular close.
The Scoreboard
Prices and moves as of the August 26 regular close. Nvidia's earnings reaction is after-hours and is not baked into these week numbers.
| Stock | YTD | Past Month | Key Catalyst This Week |
|---|
| AAPL | +15.7% | -7.8% | Soft week; still top YTD pack |
| AMZN | +14.9% | +12.7% | Gives ground; still YTD leader pack |
| NVDA | +11.0% | +6.4% | $96.2B quarter; $108B guide; 70% FY28 |
| GOOGL | +8.5% | +2.5% | Quiet week; cloud thesis steady |
| MSFT | +5.0% | +26.2% | Best clean regular-session week |
| META | -11.4% | -2.9% | Best Mag 7 week; safety settlement |
| TSLA | -21.1% | +12.5% | Gives back bounce; still deep YTD hole |
Nvidia's Night Was the Whole Story
Wall Street spent the week waiting for Nvidia, and the regular session never fully trusted the setup after days of soft tape into the report. Shares slipped into the report near $210 and finished the week about 4% lower as traders priced the chance that guidance would finally disappoint after fifteen straight beats. Then Nvidia did what it has done for more than a year: it beat expectations, guided higher, and made the next stretch of the AI build look larger than the Street wanted to admit out loud.
Revenue hit $96.2 billion, up 106% from a year earlier, while data center revenue reached $89 billion and climbed 117%. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.22 a share versus a $2.10 Street mark. The third-quarter sales outlook of about $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, cleared the roughly $104 billion consensus and would put Nvidia over $100 billion in a single quarter for the first time. China data-center compute was left out of the outlook, which is the careful way of saying demand elsewhere still has to carry the load.
The number that mattered most on the call sat farther out on the calendar than the usual quarterly guide. CFO Colette Kress said fiscal 2028 revenue growth should run around 70%, while analysts had been closer to the mid-40s. Jensen Huang said demand is still outrunning supply and that the supply chain remains stretched across the whole stack. Nvidia also pointed to a larger AWS GPU footprint, with another 2 million GPUs planned across Amazon's infrastructure into 2027 and 2028. Gross margin is expected to ease a bit as memory costs climb, which is simply the operating bill for staying this busy across the supply chain.
"Nvidia still sets the AI cash register. Meta just bought itself some legal quiet. The rest of the Mag 7 is living in the aftermath of both."
Meta Wins the Week the Old-Fashioned Way
Meta had the cleanest Mag 7 week on the regular-session board, up about 5.5% to roughly $576, after settling a high-profile child-safety case with a large group of U.S. states. The disclosed package runs in the mid-to-high teens of billions, with a roughly $10 billion legal charge expected this quarter and product changes for teens on Facebook and Instagram. Investors treated the check as expensive and the open-ended trial risk as worse, which is why the stock caught real buying even while the broader debate over AI capital spending stayed loud.
I will take the overhang off the table without pretending one settlement repairs the bigger Meta problem around cash flow and AI spend. The stock is still about 11% red year to date after the free-cash-flow shock from the AI build, and capital spending remains enormous. The market can celebrate less legal fog and still demand proof that all that spending turns into durable cash instead of more servers and more promises.
The Rest of the Board
Microsoft (MSFT) closed near $496, up about 2.5% on the week and still up more than 26% over the past month after the Azure surge. It did not need fireworks this week and instead held the high ground while Nvidia took the microphone and Meta took the legal win.
Apple (AAPL) slipped about 1% to roughly $313 and remains near the top of the year-to-date board around +16%, which is still a strong place to stand even after a soft stretch. Amazon (AMZN) fell about 2% to around $260 and is still about +15% year to date after the strong AWS month. Alphabet (GOOGL) eased less than 1% near $342 and about +8.5% year to date. Capex nerves never fully left those names. They just went quiet again while Nvidia owned the tape.
Tesla (TSLA) closed near $346, down about 1.5% on the week after last week's bounce. The month is still strongly green near +12%, and the year is still ugly near -21%. Robotaxi headlines come and go, but the multiple still needs the auto business to stop looking like a science project with a car badge on the hood.
Bottom Line
What separated winners from laggards across this Mag 7 week was fairly simple once you strip away the nickname. Nvidia still controls the AI cash register, and the after-hours report put a huge number on that claim with a $96 billion quarter, a $108 billion guide, and a 70% fiscal 2028 growth call. Meta bought legal quiet and finally won a clean weekly tape. Microsoft held strength without needing the headline. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Tesla spent the week in Nvidia's shadow.
Next week starts with the market digesting Nvidia's guide and that long-dated growth call against a still-expensive Mag 7 complex. If the follow-through holds, the hyperscaler spend story keeps its main sponsor. If after-hours joy fades into margin worry or China caution, the rest of the Mag 7 will feel it fast. Watch Nvidia's follow-through first, because everything else on this board is secondary to that reaction.
Nvidia set the exam and Meta cashed the legal relief, which is another reminder that the Mag 7 is still seven different stocks wearing one nickname.
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