News of Apple’s AI-focus unleashes $112 billion stock surge

The stock market has punished Apple this year for failing to offer a generative AI (GenAI) solution to help power its future growth. The shares caught a bid Thursday after news broke of AI-focused next-gen Apple Silicon.
Subrat Patnaik and Ryan Vlastelica for Bloomberg News:
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Apple’s decision to overhaul its Mac computer line to focus on artificial intelligence, as reported by Bloomberg, struck a chord with investors, sending the stock up 4.3% and adding $112 billion in value in its best performance in nearly a year.
Before Thursday’s announcement, the stock was down 15% from its record high set in December, wiping out more than $460 billion in market value. Trading close to its cheapest level in about a year, bargain-hunters clearly could justify taking a chance on Apple’s latest stab at AI relevance.
Sustaining this momentum, however, will depend on Apple’s ability to deliver on the promise of growth. For the Cupertino, California-based tech giant, that likely means getting AI into the iPhone.
Apple has paid mightily for its recent stagnation. It’s one of the weakest performers among the so-called Magnificent Seven this year, trailing only Tesla Inc. That has made it relatively cheap.
The underperformance reflects the lack of a defined AI strategy and several quarters of weak trends, despite the company’s strong financial position and proven revenue generation.

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MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on February:
Apple is clearly not as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs who even started the company’s work on Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro, but the company — thanks to Jobs and Cook’s subsequent management of iterations of products and services conceived during Jobs’ tenure — now has more than enough money to make up for Cook’s lack of vision.
Until it gets another visionary leader (fingers crossed; Apple’s history has shown – cough, Sculley, Spindler, cough – that the next CEO could be far, far worse than the very competent caretaker Cook), Apple can afford to miss things like generative AI – which they clearly did – and then use its huge war chest to catch up – which they’re doing right now (fun times and 80-hour weeks inside Apple Park!) – and, hopefully, surpass rivals (or at least be as good). Apple will very likely unveil their catch-up work within months (this June at WWDC 2024) in iPhones (and iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) with built-in on-device generative AI and other new AI-driven features. – MacDailyNews, February 14, 2024
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