When the Pack Splits

The Magnificent 7 stocks were supposed to move together, but 2025 has thrown that script out the window. One member is running away with the trophy while another trails so far behind you'd wonder if they're even in the same race. Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) (GOOGL) is absolutely dominating, while Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is doing something that feels deeply out of character: sitting quietly at the back of the pack.

The spread between them tells you everything about how fractured Big Tech performance has become this year. And that gap is creating one of the more interesting contrasts in the mega-cap space right now.

Alphabet Rewrites the Leaderboard

Let's start with the winner. Alphabet's stock is up 62.26% year-to-date, which is not just good—it's the strongest performance in the entire Magnificent 7. The group also includes Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), and Tesla Inc. (TSLA). Nvidia, Tesla, and Microsoft all trail well behind Alphabet, while Amazon sits firmly at the bottom.

That surge has pushed the internet search giant right back into the center of the mega-cap conversation. And here's what makes it interesting: the strength isn't just momentum. Alphabet now carries a market cap of roughly $3.7 trillion, making it the third-largest company in the group. Its earnings yield of 3.27% sits near the top of the Magnificent 7, while its PE ratio around 30 and PEG near 1.6 suggest investors aren't paying wild multiples for that growth. Even the recent run supports the narrative—the stock is up more than 8% over the past month alone.

In other words, Alphabet isn't just outperforming. It's doing so while maintaining a valuation profile that actually looks reasonable, at least by Big Tech standards.

Amazon Looks Like the Odd One Out

Now flip to the other end of the table. Amazon's stock is up just 1.05% year to date and down roughly 4.4% over the past month. That makes it the clear laggard in a group known for explosive returns. But here's where it gets interesting: that underperformance is precisely what makes the valuation stand out.

Amazon trades at a price-to-sales ratio of just 3.48, by far the lowest in the Magnificent 7. Its EV-to-EBITDA multiple around 15.4 is also near the bottom of the group, sitting alongside Meta Platforms (META). The forward PE near 27 and earnings yield above 3% only add to the contrast. While the rest of Big Tech commands premium valuations, Amazon is priced more like a value play than a growth darling.

That's unusual for a company still sitting on massive cloud infrastructure dominance through AWS and one of the most recognizable retail empires on the planet. The market isn't pricing Amazon like it's broken, but it's also not pricing it like it expects much excitement either.

The Takeaway

Alphabet is winning the Magnificent 7 race on basically every front: performance, scale, momentum, and consistency. But in a group where valuations have stretched into nosebleed territory for most names, Amazon now looks like the odd one out—not because it's overpriced, but because it isn't.

While Alphabet wears the crown, Amazon may quietly be the one priced like an actual deal in what's become an increasingly premium club. Whether that reflects caution or opportunity depends on what you think happens next with AI monetization, cloud growth, and whether the market decides laggards deserve a second look.

But for now, the contrast is hard to miss: one stock is sprinting ahead, and the other is trading like it's on sale.