President Donald J. Trump tours the Apple Manufacturing Plant with Apple CEO Tim Cook Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, at Flextronics International LTD-Austin Product Introduction Center. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Apple regained its position as the world’s largest company by market capitalization yesterday after investors rewarded the company for its artificial intelligence plans. Ryan Vlastelica reports at Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. overtook Microsoft Corp. to regain its title as the world’s most valuable company, the latest sign of improving investor sentiment over its growth and position with artificial intelligence.
The milestone followed a blistering rally, including Apple’s biggest three-day advance since August 2020. It closed with a market capitalization of $3.285 trillion, compared with Microsoft at $3.282 trillion. This is the first time since January that Apple closed with a higher market value than Microsoft, and it represents the latest reshuffling of the ranks of Wall Street’s largest stocks. Earlier this week, Apple closed in third place behind Nvidia Corp.
“People have a high degree of conviction that they will be an AI winner, and it seems like this is a market where if you’re an AI winner, you’re being bid up a lot,” said Rhys Williams, chief strategist at Wayve Capital Management. “I assume both Microsoft and Apple will be somewhat of a horse race for the foreseeable future with Nvidia also in contention.”
The Cupertino, California-based company rose 0.6% on Thursday, its third straight positive session, which also included the largest one-day percentage gain since November 2022 on Tuesday. The three-day jump of about 11% added a staggering $323.9 billion to its market capitalization. That’s bigger than all but a handful of components in the S&P 500 Index.
Microsoft rose 0.1% on Thursday.
The catalyst for the gains was Apple’s AI-focused Worldwide Developers Conference presentation on Monday, which fueled hopes that customers will pay up for the next generation of iPhones, spurring a long-awaited rebound in growth. Revenue fell 4.3% in Apple’s fiscal second quarter, the fifth contraction in the past six quarters.
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