The market can be fickle, and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock has been feeling that sentiment over the past few years.
It lost market confidence when it appeared to lag in artificial intelligence (AI) development, but it’s come roaring back as iPhone sales soar and Apple Intelligence comes to life for a fraction of what Apple’s peers are spending
On the heels of the market’s enthusiasm, Apple reports earnings on July 30. Here’s why it could become the second company to reach $5 trillion in value. Why Apple stock is on fire After sitting in the doldrums as AI giants like Amazon and Alphabet made impressive progress in AI, Apple demonstrated its astute method when it announced a deal with Alphabet to “rent” the Gemini large language model (LLM) and customize it for its own use.
The deal is that Apple pays Alphabet $1 billion annually — a fraction of the $200 billion both Amazon and Alphabet plan to spend on AI in 2026 alone. Apple stock began to rise from there, but there have been many other exciting updates since then. Apple impressed the market with continued elevated iPhone sales, which increased 23% year over year in the 2026 fiscal first quarter (ended Dec. 27), the all-important holiday season, and 21% in the second quarter (ended March 28).