Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Getty Images)

Bad Apple spoils the bunch

Nvidia surpasses Apple in market cap again as AI fortunes diverge

One stock is growing quickly and surrounded by positive news coverage. The other, by comparison, is a snail being tracked by a rain cloud.

Luke Kawa

1/22/25 10:24AM

Call it a tale of two $3 trillion companies. Nvidia surpassed Apple in market capitalization for the sixth time, and the gap in value between the two megacaps is growing on Wednesday, with Nvidia up 4.2% and Apple treading water as of 10:15 a.m ET.

Both are very expensive tech stocks, judging by popular, surface-level measures of valuation like the forward-price-to-earnings ratio. But based on recent news and sentiment surrounding these behemoths, that’s where the similarities end.

Usually, investors are willing to pay a lofty price for stocks because those companies’ top and bottom lines are growing fast.

That’s still true of Nvidia. Even with revenue and profit growth decelerating, those metrics are still poised to be up in excess of 70% year on year when it reports quarterly results on February 26. But the bar for Apple is nearly on the floor. Consensus estimates are for sales and income to be up merely in mid-single digits year on year when the company releases updated financials next week.

Nvidia bulls are also getting a consistent drumbeat of reassurance that the AI boom is still on, from Microsoft and Amazon’s data-center spending plans to the fresh assortment of AI infrastructure initiatives outlined by President Trump along with executives from Oracle, OpenAI, and Softbank on Tuesday.

Apple, on the other hand, is underwhelming on AI to the point where it may be adversely affecting its core hardware — or at the very least, failing to be a compelling selling point. According to many reports, Apple Intelligence hasn’t driven a strong upgrade cycle. Far from it. Seemingly every day brings a new headline about softness in iPhone sales, with China in particular cited as a sore spot.

As such, the stock has been getting trounced during a period of historically unprecedented market breadth that has seen two-thirds of S&P 500 constituents rise for six straight sessions.

Two of Apple’s worst five days relative to the equal-weight S&P 500 over the past four years have happened in the last three trading days.

Shares are teetering near their 200-day moving average — a level they haven’t closed below since early May — with the shares down more than 10% year to date in their worst month since December 2022, as things stand.

Apple down double digits in a month where the S&P 500 rises more than 3%? That’s something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade.

Luke Kawa5h

Strategy jumps as MSCI allows digital asset treasury companies to stay in global indexes

In a massive reprieve for Strategy, index provider MSCI is letting digital asset companies stay in its benchmarks, sending shares sharply higher in after-hours trading.

The index provider had floated a proposal in which firms where crypto holdings are more than 50% of assets would be excluded from its global indexes, but has decided not to proceed with this for now.

“MSCI has determined at this time not to implement the proposal to exclude digital asset treasury companies (‘DATCOs’) from the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes (‘MSCI Indexes’) as part of the February 2026 Index Review,” per a statement.

Getting kicked out of key indexes would have caused funds to flow out of Strategy, the largest digital asset treasury company, and its peers.

“At this time,” of course, means the door is open to reconsidering this down the road, as MSCI plans on having a broader review and consultation on the treatment of DAT companies.

“Distinguishing between investment companies and other companies that hold non-operating assets, such as digital assets, as part of their core operations rather than for investment purposes requires further research and consultation with market participants,” according to MSCI.

Matt Phillips7h

Rocket Lab surges to second straight record-high close

Retail favorite Rocket Lab closed at a new all-time high on Tuesday, continuing a remarkable run over the last month that has carried the launch services provider and aspiring Space X competitor up more than 70% over the last month (compared to its close of $49.06 on December 5).

Rocket Lab saw elevated options activity during its run-up today, with well over 3.5x the 90-day average in options volume changing hands over the course of the day.

Other space plays such as AST SpaceMobile and EchoStar surged today.

Despite being a money-losing company — it’s never turned an annual profit as a public company — Rocket Lab’s share price has soared nearly 1,500% over the last two years, generating tons of loyalty and enthusiasm among retail investors.

In fact, Goldman Sachs has made Rocket Lab the heaviest weighting in the latest iteration of its GS Memes basket of thematic stocks, just ahead of AST SpaceMobile, showing how enamored traders have become of such space stocks.

CHICAGO, IL - MARCH 05: Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls entertains during a break between the Bulls and the Boston Celtics at the United Center on March 5, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

The S&P 500 closes at a record high

The Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 outperformed, rising 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively.

Tasha Matsumoto7h

Max Knoblauch10h

JetBlue takes off on bullish options activity

Low-cost airline JetBlue is up more than 8% on Tuesday, on pace for its biggest daily gain since August. If the price momentum holds, Tuesday will mark JetBlue’s sixth-best trading day of the past 52 weeks.

The carrier is being propelled by bullish options activity, with more than 53,000 call options changing hands as of 12:14 p.m. ET, nearly 4x the 20-day average for a full session.

JetBlue closed up 4.6% on Monday, as traders appeared to price in medium-term oil supply relief due to the possibility of Venezuela’s reserves getting more developed amid tensions with the US.

J. Edward Moreno11h

Moderna rallies after BofA raises its price target to $24 from $21

Moderna rose on Tuesday after Bank of America analysts raised their price target for the ailing biotech behind the COVID-19 vaccine, painting a rosy picture of the products in its pipeline.

BofA kept Moderna’s “underperform” rating but raised its price target to $24 from $21, which now accounts for “refreshed revenue builds for lead assets.” Analysts said the company’s cost-cutting measures, paired with potential new revenue from its investigatory oncology vaccines, could bring it back to profitability in the coming years.

Moderna is best known for being tapped by the US government to quickly develop a vaccine for COVID-19 in 2020, a product that remains its single source of revenue. The company has yet to bring new products to market and is now faced with a second Trump administration hostile to that product.