Apple Decouples From Nasdaq as AI ‘Whack-a-Mole’ Grips Market
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Apple Decouples From Nasdaq as AI ‘Whack-a-Mole’ Grips Market
010 mins
(Bloomberg) — It’s been nearly 20 years since Apple Inc. was this untethered from its tech peers, giving investors an appealing alternative to the artificial intelligence-fueled volatility that has gripped most other corners of the stock market in recent weeks.
Apple’s 40-day correlation to the Nasdaq 100 Index tumbled to 0.21 last week, the lowest since 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its correlation with the benchmark has been on the decline since May, when it reached 0.92, as Apple’s decision to mostly sit out the AI arms race has turned it into an outlier compared with many of its rivals. A correlation of 1 means the two securities are moving in perfect unison, while a reading of -1 signals they are moving opposite each other.
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“Apple’s lack of correlation is 100% a positive right now,” said Art Hogan, who helps oversee $25 billion as chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. “We’re in an environment of AI whack-a-mole, where investors are so nervous about what will be disrupted next they’re shooting first and asking questions later.”
For more than a month, investors have found themselves in an AI-fueled “doom loop,” flip-flopping between fears that the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI will not pay off and worries that industries from software to wealth management and logistics will be rendered obsolete by the same technology.
Apple, meanwhile, doesn’t fit the bill on either side of that angst. The iPhone-maker isn’t participating in the capex spending bonanza and doesn’t have a major business line that is seen at risk from the likes of Anthropic PBC’s Claude tools. While Apple has faced challenges with integrating AI into its products, the company is said to be accelerating development of three AI-powered hardware devices.
Results released last month also underscored some of the positive trends at the company. It reported record quarterly sales — with notable strength in its key iPhone product line — and gave a better-than-expected outlook for the current quarter. The company will host a product launch event in a couple weeks.
Apple’s decoupling from its tech peers was on full display Tuesday, when its 3.2% gain easily outperformed the 0.1% drop in the Nasdaq 100 Index. That marked the third time this month that the stock has bested the gauge by at least 3 percentage points, including a Feb. 4 drubbing that was the best in more than a year.
The stock is 1.7% higher for the month of February, compared with a 3.3% decline in the Nasdaq 100 and a 7.5% slump for the Magnificent Seven Index, which is headed for its worst monthly performance since March.
“It could have less room to rise in a tech rebound, but I don’t think it gets sold, because it sits at the front of the list of companies that look insulated from AI,” Hogan said.
Still, the stock has experienced its share of volatility — including last week’s 8% slump, its largest since April. Its 5% tumble on Thursday was its worst since April’s tariff-fueled selloff and came just a day after Bloomberg News reported that the company’s long-planned upgrade to the Siri virtual assistant could get delayed.
Skyrocketing prices for memory chips have also become a growing headwind, especially as Apple’s growth lags behind other names within tech. Analysts expect its revenue to rise 11% for its fiscal year ending in September, before decelerating to a 6.7% pace in the 2027 fiscal year. Earnings are also expected to slow next year, according to estimates data compiled by Bloomberg.
That relatively tepid profit growth outlook has the stock trading at roughly 30 times estimated earnings over the next year, higher than every Magnificent Seven peer outside of Tesla Inc. and well above the 24 level where the Nasdaq 100 trades.
“Apple is not a bargain and it hasn’t been in a while, and there’s no real growth there compared with the rest of tech,” said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at Phoenix Financial Services. “However, I think the market will continue to give it the benefit of the doubt.”
“There’s a lot less risk for hardware than software,” Kaufman added. “And regardless of anything else, it isn’t like people can use AI to code themselves a new iPhone.”
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An Indian startup called Sarvam AI is making a push to create a viable competitor for the domestic market, unveiling an artificial-intelligence model that it says is more tailored to the languages and cultures of the world’s biggest market than the likes of ChatGPT and Claude.
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–With assistance from Subrat Patnaik, David Watkins and Olivia Solon.
