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As Apple Inc. inches its way to a $3 trillion valuation — the Cupertino-based tech titan's stock price rose 1.5% Monday closing at a record high of $183.79 per share — the growth appears to show a Wall Street bull market that some say has shrugged off talks of recession and inflation.
Analysts believe last week's announcement at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference of the Vision Pro, its $3,449 mixed reality headset, was key to the company's stock price surge. Over the past 30 days, Apple's stock has increased its value by more than 6%.
And Apple alone isn't the only Silicon Valley company to see impressive gains, either:
- Nvidia Corp., the Santa Clara-based semiconductor company that makes chips to power artificial intelligence systems for enterprises, is up about 38% over the past month after posting impressive quarterly earnings and gaining significant public attention over its artificial intelligence tech offerings.
- Tesla Inc., which is based in Texas but has its original vehicle factory in Fremont and its engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, is up more than 51% over the past month. Last week, the automaker announced that owners of General Motors Company's electric vehicles could use its chargers, further helping boost its stock.
These companies have been credited for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq enjoying their highest closing levels since April 2022. The S&P 500 was up Tuesday morning 0.53% to begin the session at 4,362.78 points.
But while shareholders and CEOs might be celebrating, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers remained wary. The U.S. economy remains "very, very hot" Summers told an audience at the Caixin Asia New Vision Forum in Singapore on Monday.
“The United States is, today, an underlying 4.5-5% inflation country,” Summers warned the attendees via a video call, that recession is still possible and the hopes of avoiding one "represent the triumph of hope over experience."
Not really, argued Barron's Jacob Sonenshine, "the bears have apparently forgotten is that stocks are always looking forward, not back. All of the handwringing over a possible recession can’t hide the fact that the S&P 500 already suffered through a bear market in 2022."
While Apple showed a slight dip Tuesday morning, it is one of four Bay Area companies in the S&P 500's top 10 stocks to showing bump in value, along with Nvidia, Inc., both Alphabet Inc. Class A and Class C stocks, Tesla, and Meta Platforms Inc.'s Class A stocks.
Microsoft Corp., and Amazon Inc. — both with a large presence in Silicon Valley, in Mountain View and Sunnyvale respectively — round out the S&P top three in the number 2 and 3 spots, also showed impressive gains.
Investment in artificial intelligence by all the tech companies in the S&P 500 top 10 also moved markets with their AI investment fervor having fueled a $4 trillion rally in tech stocks over the last year.