New York, Jan 7, 2026, 16:02 EST — After-hours
- Apple shares fell 0.7% to $260.53 in late trade, underperforming other mega-caps.
- Alphabet briefly moved ahead of Apple by market value, a rare reshuffle at the top of U.S. equities.
- Rising memory prices and Apple’s Jan. 29 earnings call are the next key tests.
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) shares fell 0.7% to $260.53 in late regular trade on Wednesday, still below their 52-week high of $288.62, with about 56 million shares changing hands. The dip left the iPhone maker briefly behind Alphabet as the No. 2 U.S. company by market value, trailing Nvidia, according to reports.
The shuffle matters because Apple and Alphabet sit at the center of U.S. equity indexes, where small moves can tilt benchmark performance. Alphabet rallied about 66% in 2025 versus Apple’s roughly 9% gain, helped by investor appetite for AI-related growth and relief after an antitrust ruling that softened penalties versus worst-case fears.
For Apple, the timing is awkward. Traders are trying to price a familiar squeeze: hardware names with premium valuations can get punished quickly when input costs move and earnings are close enough to matter, but not close enough to settle the argument.
Morgan Stanley analysts said Apple has secured enough NAND flash — the storage used for photos, apps and files — to sustain production through the first quarter. But talks around DRAM, the short-term memory that helps devices run smoothly, are tighter, with the bank expecting Apple to cover its needs through the quarter only by accepting sequential price increases of more than 50%, DigiTimes reported.
Memory pricing has been jumping as chipmakers pivot capacity toward AI servers and high-bandwidth memory, a faster type of DRAM used in AI processors. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 55% to 60% this quarter, and its analyst Avril Wu said suppliers “stand to gain relatively more from the current price upcycle”; Micron’s CEO has also warned tight conditions could extend past 2026.
But Apple still has to choose how much of the higher bill to absorb and how much to push through to customers, a decision that can misfire if demand softens. In the background, U.S. appeals court judges are set to consider a bid by Apple customers to revive a class action accusing the company of monopolizing the App Store and causing $20 billion of overcharges, after a judge decertified a class of nearly 200 million consumers.
Technicals are also creeping into the conversation. Investors’ Business Daily said Apple is forming a “flat base” with a 288.62 buy point, but the stock risks slipping below its 50-day moving average — a line that tracks the average closing price over the past 50 sessions. Investors
Macro could still do the heavy lifting. The U.S. labor market report for December is due Friday, Jan. 9, followed by December CPI inflation data on Tuesday, Jan. 13, and the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting runs Jan. 27-28 — all events that can shift rate expectations and, in turn, the multiples investors will pay for mega-cap tech.
For Apple, the next hard catalyst is its fiscal first-quarter results call on Jan. 29 at 5 p.m. ET, when executives will face questions on margins, component costs and what can keep earnings growing if hardware demand cools.
