Apple responds to Wall Street – E24

The tech giant's acquisition was the biggest driver behind the Nasdaq's rise, the day after Apple showed off new artificial intelligence functions.

It was a mixed day on Wall Street overall on Tuesday.

On the one hand, a rise in Apple shares marked the trading day, while investors eagerly await tomorrow's interest rate decision from the US central bank and new US inflation numbers.

This is what US stock markets looked like at the close:

• The S&P 500 collective index rose 0.27%.
• The Nasdaq technology index rose 0.88 percent
• The Dow Jones index fell by 0.31 percent

Apple to its highest levels ever

The week started off slightly higher on Wall Street yesterday, with Apple falling nearly 2% after unveiling new AI features on the opening day of its annual developers conference.

But sentiment among investors took a complete turn today, as Apple made up what it lost and saw on the stock market.

The stock rose as much as 7.26 percent to reach a price of $207.15 per share. It's a new list high, and the first time since December of last year that the stock has reached an “all-time high.”

Thus, Apple returned to second place in terms of market value after surpassing Nvidia in terms of market value. Apple is now worth about $3,176 billion, which equates to approximately 34,000 billion kroner. Only Microsoft is more valuable.

The tech giant yesterday launched new artificial intelligence functions for the iPhone and other Apple products that have been collectively named “Apple Intelligence.” It has also become clear that they have entered into a collaboration with OpenAI which means that ChatGPT will be integrated into the iPhone through Siri functionality.

Apple stock also performed better than other major technology companies, which achieved much more cautious gains. Nvidia shares fell by 0.71 percent.

The meeting of interest rates and inflation

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, comes out with its interest rate decision at 20pm Norwegian time tomorrow evening.

Interest rates are not expected to be cut this time, but the central bank is also providing new forecasts for the economy and future interest rates. Some of the tension lies in whether Fed members' interest rate forecasts, called dotplot, will show smaller rate cuts this year than the three Feds forecast in March.

“We expect Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and company to maintain a hold that potential rate cuts remain dependent on the committee seeing further progress in lowering price pressure,” Ameriprise's Anthony Saglimbini tells Bloomberg.

Dane Sikhoff, chief strategist at Nordea Markets, also told E24 over the weekend that “it will likely be difficult for Powell to say much new” when he holds a press conference after the interest rate decision.

There will also be May inflation numbers before Wall Street opens on Wednesday. US inflation has more or less stopped cooling since last fall, remaining at above 3%.

May figures are expected to show inflation stabilizing at 3.4 percent, and core inflation falling slightly to 3.5 percent year-on-year.