Many of the "Magnificent Seven" stocks are underperforming the market this year. Microsoft still demonstrates solid long-term potential despite its recent slump.

The tech sector is filled with companies that have outperformed the S&P 500. In fact, more than a quarter of the S&P 500 consist of tech companies.

Key Points: Bing could gain market share as Google faces antitrust issues, making Microsoft a potential long-term buy.

Investing wisely requires understanding a company's fundamentals, ensuring a sound foundation for potential growth. This August, three stocks stand out in the consumer discretionary, technology and financial services sectors, each poised for significant gains.

Microsoft's financial fortitude makes it a great stock to buy and hold for the long haul. Netflix's dominance in streaming is translating to strong earnings growth that can send the stock higher.

Exchange-traded funds can provide investors with some great diversification. In many cases, however, top funds have a lot of exposure to just a handful of stocks.

The integration of generative AI tools into its unified platform of customer relationship management (CRM) tools could drive additional upside for HubSpot. The company's long track record of growth and loyal customer base make it an intriguing investment.

One of these stocks has a potentially huge catalyst on the way. Another's relationship with an AI pioneer is arguably its ace in the hole.

Artificial intelligence stocks Nvidia, Broadcom, and Super Micro Computer have announced stock splits in 2024; Microsoft and ServiceNow could be next. Microsoft is the world's largest software company and second-largest public cloud, and the company is monetizing artificial intelligence across both segments.

Microsoft and Palantir just announced a wide-ranging expansion of their strategic partnership. The pair will combine their cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) expertise to accelerate the adoption of AI across the U.S. government's defense and intelligence communities.

Microsoft's recent pullback is attributed to multi-faceted reasons, partly the CRWD snafu and the supposedly slower AI monetization. Combined with the massive capex reported in FY2024 and the guidance of higher spending in FY2025, it is unsurprising that the market reacted as it had. Even so, we maintain our optimism surrounding its long-term prospects, attributed to its still robust cloud market share and growing backlog despite the capacity constraints.

Since its was founded in 2015, OpenAI has emerged as one of the most influential AI companies, with major enterprise customers and billions in revenue.