Apple and NVIDIA trade title of world’s most valuable company amid diverging investor sentiment
Apple’s market capitalisation briefly surpassed $5 trillion on strong earnings, but soft guidance and supply chain headwinds have triggered a sell-off, while NVIDIA faces scrutiny over AI financing deals despite stronger hedge fund backing.
Apple Inc and NVIDIA Corporation have swapped the position of the world’s most valuable company multiple times over the past two weeks, reflecting a volatile period for global equity markets. Apple first edged ahead on Friday, 17 July, with a valuation of $4.88 trillion compared to NVIDIA’s roughly $4.86 trillion, following a 3.5 per cent drop in NVIDIA shares. The title changed hands again on Monday, 27 July, when NVIDIA’s value fell to about $4.77 trillion, placing it below Apple’s $4.95 trillion.
Apple’s valuation briefly touched the $5 trillion milestone on Tuesday, 28 July, a level NVIDIA had previously reached in October. However, Apple’s shares subsequently fell two consecutive days, dropping between 7 and 8 per cent in extended trading following its fiscal third-quarter earnings report. Despite the stock decline, the company reported strong financial numbers, with revenue rising 16.4 per cent to $109.42 billion, surpassing both estimates and internal guidance.
The earnings beat was driven by record performance in key hardware segments. iPhone sales increased by 21.7 per cent to $54.25 billion, marking Apple’s best-ever fiscal third quarter, while Mac sales rose by 28.7 per cent. Chief Executive Tim Cook described the performance as an “incredibly strong product cycle beyond our expectations,” noting that the company was seeing robust demand ahead of the September handover of hardware leadership to John Ternus.
Investor sentiment turned negative following Apple’s guidance for the current quarter, which was softer than Wall Street expectations. The company forecast revenue growth of just 9 to 11 per cent, below the 12 per cent analysts had anticipated, and guided gross margins down to 47 to 48 per cent from the previous quarter’s 50.1 per cent. Cook attributed the constraints to rising memory costs and chipmaking capacity shortages, describing the memory crunch as a “hundred-year flood.”
Meanwhile, NVIDIA faces distinct pressures, including reports that it is backing a $250 billion financing deal for an OpenAI data centre project. The company also contends with increasing competition from Chinese chipmakers. Despite these headwinds and a recent slide in share price, hedge fund sentiment remains significantly stronger for NVIDIA. Data from Insider Monkey indicates that NVIDIA had 275 hedge fund holders as of the first quarter of 2026, compared to 170 for Apple, with NVIDIA’s holder count growing from 264 in the prior quarter.
