Apple Closes at $5 Trillion as AI Hardware Stocks Slide

Apple closed at a market capitalization of $5.005 trillion on October 14, becoming the second company after Nvidia to reach that level, according to The Wall Street Journal. It was the first time Apple held the $5 trillion valuation at the close, after exceeding it intraday six previous times.

The milestone came as shares of AI infrastructure providers fell sharply. Dell slid 11%, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle and Super Micro also declined. Oracle dropped 9% on the day and is down 33% year-to-date. CoreWeave lost 15%, erasing its gains for 2026.

Barclays downgraded Dell, HPE and NetApp from Buy to Hold, pointing to recent share price gains and the timing of enterprise AI adoption. Memory and storage chip makers also weakened: Micron fell 11% this week, U.S.-listed SK hynix dropped 13%, and Western Digital declined more than 8%.

Apple's pricing moves

Apple recently replaced Tim Cook with John Ternus as CEO. The company raised device prices, including older iPhone models, and its shares rose 25% after the first price increase. The divergence highlights how investors are treating Apple's device and services business differently from companies tied to data center buildouts.

Earlier in 2026, Dell shares had risen more than 300%, HPE about 160% and NetApp roughly doubled on expectations of long-term AI chip and system demand, according to digitaltoday.co.kr. Under former CEO Tim Cook, Apple kept capital expenditure relatively conservative, focusing on devices and high-margin services while rival big tech companies poured money into data centers. A surge in data center demand also caused a shortage of memory and storage chips, raising component costs for the iPhone, Mac and iPad.