Apple Hits Record as NVIDIA’s Forward P/E Falls

Apple closed at a record on Sept. 21, 2026, touching nearly $345 intraday and settling near $339. The stock is up more than 36% over the past 12 months and Apple’s market value exceeded $5 trillion.

The rally followed strong demand for the latest iPhone models, notably the iPhone 18 Pro, and longer delivery windows that suggest extended upgrade activity. Interest in an upcoming foldable iPhone Duo has also drawn customers. Services revenue-including app sales, subscriptions and payment fees-continued to expand and added higher-margin income. Market participants pointed to improvements to on-device Siri AI and described a recent leadership transition as orderly.

NVIDIA reported quarterly revenue above $96 billion, an increase of more than 100% year over year, with data-center sales accounting for most of the gains. The stock traded near record levels even as its forward price-to-earnings ratio compressed from above 25x earlier this year to below 17x.

At under 17x forward earnings, NVIDIA now trades below the semiconductor sector’s forward multiple, roughly 20x. Market participants cited several factors that may explain the multiple compression: potential slowdowns in AI capital spending by major cloud providers, competition from custom chips developed by those providers, and pressure on memory and component costs that could affect margins.

A market strategist who follows semiconductor stocks cautioned, “Investors are asking whether NVIDIA can keep delivering at the pace that its current numbers imply.”

Traders and analysts will watch upcoming earnings and capital-spending guidance from major cloud providers for signals about future demand for AI accelerators. Those reports may influence how the market prices NVIDIA relative to peers and could affect Apple’s stock amid ongoing hardware demand and services growth.