NVIDIA Barely Holds Global Market Cap Crown as Apple Briefly Takes Lead

NVIDIA (NVDA-US) faced selling pressure on Friday (17th), briefly overtaken by Apple (AAPL-US) in market capitalization, narrowly avoiding the loss of its title as the world's most valuable company. However, NVIDIA later recovered its losses, ultimately reclaiming the top position by a slim margin.

NVIDIA's stock dipped as low as $197.97 during the session, closing down 2.21% at $202.81 per share, with a market value of approximately $4.91 trillion. Apple, meanwhile, rose 0.14% to close at $333.74 per share, with a market value of about $4.90 trillion.

According to Dow Jones market data, Apple briefly surpassed NVIDIA in early trading, temporarily claiming the title of the world's most valuable company. However, NVIDIA regained the lead during morning trading. Since overtaking Microsoft (MSFT-US) in June last year, NVIDIA has maintained its position as the global market cap leader for 266 consecutive trading days.

Apple's stock has shown relative strength recently, hitting a 52-week high of $334.99 during Friday's session. In contrast, NVIDIA was dragged down by broader semiconductor sector selling, falling over 2%.

Chip stocks have weakened over recent weeks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down 1.6% on Friday and roughly 18% lower since July. Despite this, NVIDIA has outperformed most of its semiconductor peers, rising over 1% so far this month and about 9% year-to-date.

The Barron's Weekly reports that Wall Street analysts currently assign NVIDIA an average target price of around $314. For NVIDIA's stock to reach this level, the key will be whether major tech companies commit to maintaining or accelerating their artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending during the upcoming earnings season.

The market will also watch whether major tech firms continue to affirm NVIDIA's leadership in AI chips and whether the next-generation Vera Rubin platform can smoothly enter mass production.

On the other hand, Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI announced on Friday that its Kimi K3 model outperforms some advanced U.S. AI systems, though it did not disclose the hardware used to train the model.

If Kimi K3 is ultimately proven to run on non-NVIDIA chips such as those from Huawei, it could shake market perceptions of NVIDIA's dominance in AI model training. However, it could also spur U.S. tech companies to accelerate investment, further boosting demand for high-end AI computing hardware.