Apple and Microsoft fight for the throne of Wall Street

Battle to be the most listed in the world. Yesterday, Microsoft overtook Apple as the most valuable company on the New York stock market.

On a day marked by the publication of the United States CPI, which dragged equities downward, the company founded by Bill Gates gained 1.6% at the beginning of the session and reached a capitalization of 2.875 billion dollars . At the same time, the iPhone manufacturer fell 0.90% and its market value stood at 2.871 billion dollars.

However, the day's progress deflated the rise in Microsoft shares, which gained just 0.5% and placed the group's capitalization at 2.85 million dollars. Apple went further and lost 0.32%. So far this year, Microsoft has gained 2.28%, but Apple has gained just over 3.5%, hurt by the reduction in the recommendation of three entities. One of them, Barclays.

The last time Microsoft surpassed Apple as the largest company on Wall Street was on November 17, 2021, when supply chain problems due to the Covid-19 pandemic penalized the apple firm's shares. Both giants have exchanged positions on the podium of the American trading floor in the last decade, with the permission of Amazon, which for thirteen days between January and February 2019 was the largest American company and the largest in the world.

In the last year, Microsoft has skyrocketed 60% on the stock market, compared to Apple's 30%. Investors are rewarding the AI ​​bet of the company behind Windows, Azure and Xbox, as they believe it can accelerate their cloud computing and software businesses. Microsoft announced in January 2023 an investment of $10 billion in OpenAI, creators of ChatGP.

Apple, for its part, has recorded four consecutive quarters of declines in revenue due to the weakness of the iPhone in China. "It could be a drag on the growth of its business in the coming years," the US platform Redburn Atlantic said in a statement on Wednesday.

A report from the analysis firm Jefferies points out that sales of Apple's flagship product plummeted 30% in the first week of January, confirming the increasing competition it has to face from Huawei and other national brands.

The American investment bank D.A. Davidson directly stated that it was "inevitable" that Microsoft would surpass Apple's capitalization.

60% of analysts compiled by Bloomberg who follow the value maintain their overweight recommendation on Apple, with a potential of 7.9%.

In the case of Microsoft, purchase recommendations amount to 90% and give it an upward trend of 9.6%.