Apple briefly surpassed Nvidia on Friday to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company by market capitalization, before handing the crown back within an hour amid a volatile trading session. The swap underscores the shifting dynamics in the technology sector as AI-related stocks experience turbulence.
Apple’s market cap reached approximately $4.88 trillion during the session, edging past Nvidia as semiconductor stocks sold off. The chip sector was under pressure following the release of Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 open-source model, which renewed investor concerns about the long-term pricing power of GPU manufacturers.
The brief overtaking is significant because Nvidia had held the top spot for most of the year, riding the AI investment wave that has driven its stock to extraordinary gains. However, the emergence of competitive Chinese AI models built despite export restrictions has prompted some investors to reassess their assumptions about chip demand and pricing.
Apple, meanwhile, has benefited from a perception as a relative safe haven in the tech sector. While the company has been slower to capitalize on the AI trend than some peers, its massive cash generation, services revenue growth, and loyal customer base have made it a defensive choice for investors rotating out of high-flying AI names.
The two companies have traded the market cap lead multiple times over the past year, reflecting the highly competitive and sentiment-driven nature of current tech valuations. Apple and Nvidia now both sit above the $4 trillion market cap threshold, a level only they have achieved.
This article was adapted from Protos. Read the original here.
