“Magnificent Seven” Stocks Ranked by Share Repurchases and Dividends

Key Points

• All of the “Magnificent Seven” have been cash-generating machines for years — until recently.

• Most of them have long track records of making substantial capital distributions to shareholders.

• Hyperscalers have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence infrastructure, eroding their free cash flows.

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Throughout history, no group of stocks has returned as much capital to shareholders as the “Magnificent Seven.”

Back in 2023, Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett first put that name on a group of megacap tech stocks that had taken the lead in consumer and enterprise technology in hardware and in the cloud, and leveraged their positions to become some of the largest companies in the world.

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These businesses have proven to be phenomenally profitable.

All of these companies have generated spectacular free cash flow and have therefore been able to repurchase tons of stock, which shareholders love to see. Some in the group also pay dividends.

Many members of the Magnificent Seven have taken the lead on artificial intelligence, and while that trend has contributed to some stellar growth for their stocks, the members of this group are also on track to lay out a total of well over $1 trillion in AI capital expenditures over the course of 2025 and 2026.

This intense capex is primarily going toward AI data center infrastructure. However, that spending has severely crimped the free cash flows of several of these Magnificent Seven companies, and taken a bite out of their capital distributions.

Image source: Getty Images.

Their treasure troves of cash have been significantly depleted

The Magnificent Seven companies, particularly those that are hyperscalers, have committed to extraordinary levels of capex in their efforts to build AI infrastructure. The situation has reminded many investors of the dot-com bubble that formed in the late 1990s (and burst in 2000), albeit with some big differences.

Below, I have ranked the Magnificent Seven by total yield, defined as the sum of their outlays for share repurchases and dividends as a percentage of market cap, based on their distributions in the first six months of 2026. I’ve annualized the yields.

Data source: Company financial statements and SEC filings.

As you can see above, Apple slightly edges out Nvidia for the highest total yield. Coincidentally, these two companies also have the two largest market caps. This makes some sense because neither Apple nor Nvidia is investing heavily in building AI infrastructure.

Nvidia designs the graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs) that are typically installed in these data centers, so it’s racking in a large share of that AI-driven capex spending.

Apple, meanwhile, has chosen not to build a massive AI data center operation, choosing to take a more wait-and-see approach. At first, Apple received some criticism for that strategy, but some investors now prefer it, as doubts have grown about whether or not hyperscalers will generate the necessary returns to justify their gigantic investments.

Rather, Apple is more likely to play a role in bringing AI to consumers through its hardware, both through its popular iPhones and its Mac Mini and Mac Studio computers, which developers have taken a liking to as tools for working on AI models.

What forward guidance looks like

While looking at past returns is helpful, investors are in the future business, so when assessing the Magnificent Seven, they need to examine what their capital distributions could look like from here.

Apple recently increased its quarterly dividend by 4% to $0.27 per share and announced an additional authorization to repurchase $100 billion of stock, indicating that its capital returns should continue at their current healthy levels or improve. Apple also has a strong track record on stock repurchases.

Nvidia is coming off a quarter in which it returned a record $26 billion in capital to shareholders, most of which came through stock repurchases. On the company’s most recentearnings call CFO Collette Kress told investors that it plans to return at least 50% of free cash flow going forward.

Over the six-month period that ended on July 26, Nvidia generated free cash flow of nearly $70 billion. Assuming that it continues to do so at that pace, investors are looking at about $17.5 billion of capital distributions per quarter, although keep in mind that companies’ free cash flows can naturally bounce around quarter to quarter.

For the rest of the Magnificent Seven, I wouldn’t expect to see increases or renewed share buybacks anytime soon, as most of these companies have said they expect to continue routing huge sums into capex, potentially even increasing their spending next year.

Overall, for investors seeking total yield, Apple remains the best pick right now, as its growing dividend and repurchase plan provide solid visibility into its plans.

It’s possible Nvidia’s total yield could overtake Apple’s at some point, but Nvidia is also a riskier investment, in my view, because an AI slowdown would have a stronger negative impact on its business than Apple’s.

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Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.