Apple expanded its lead as the world’s most valuable company and overtook Nvidia as the largest weighting in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes after Nvidia shares slumped nearly 27% from their all time peak to an overnight low of $179. The drop ahead of Nvidia’s Nov 17 earnings report pushed the chipmaker’s daily relative strength index to its most oversold reading in 7.5 years and left the stock at its widest gap below its 200 day moving average since April 2025.
Nvidia had briefly moved past Apple on Tuesday to a roughly $5.02 trillion valuation against Apple’s $4.85 trillion when the iPhone maker’s shares fell nearly 4% following its fiscal fourth quarter report. Before the broader semiconductor pullback reversed the rankings on Wednesday, investors had sold Apple on its forecast for December quarter gross margins of 45% to 46%, below the 46.3% consensus estimate and down from 47.9% in the September quarter.
CFO Kevan Parekh attributed the margin compression to Siri AI ramp costs and what he called “unprecedented” memory pricing as AI data center builders absorb chip supply. To lock in components for the holiday quarter, Apple raised its manufacturing purchase obligations by $33B between June and September and boosted inventory 154% year over year to $14.54B. The memory squeeze overshadowed a holiday revenue growth forecast of 7% to 10%, ahead of the 6.1% estimate, and September quarter revenue that rose 12% to $114.48B in CEO John Ternus’s first earnings report.