Today: 17 July 2026
Big Tech stocks brace for Monday as Nvidia CEO vows ‘huge’ OpenAI investment and Apple’s iPhone rebound shows up

Big Tech stocks brace for Monday as Nvidia CEO vows ‘huge’ OpenAI investment and Apple’s iPhone rebound shows up

New York, January 31, 2026, 13:09 EST — Market closed.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Saturday the chip designer will make a “huge” investment in OpenAI, rejecting a The Wall Street Journal report that talks on an earlier plan for up to $100 billion had stalled. Speaking in Taipei, Huang was asked whether it would be over $100 billion and replied: “No, no, nothing like that.” Reuters

The comments land as OpenAI’s fundraising pulls some of the largest U.S. tech names into the same room. Amazon is in talks to invest as much as $50 billion, a source told Reuters, though the discussions are early and the numbers have not been finalised. Amazon is also an investor in Anthropic, while SoftBank Group has been in talks to put in up to an additional $30 billion, Reuters reported.

Big Tech stock prices ended the week with one eye on the weekend headlines and the other on rates. Stocks fell on Friday after Donald Trump tapped Kevin Warsh as his choice to lead the Federal Reserve, and after producer prices came in hotter than expected. Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Asset Management, said the market was weighing inflation and “the question on earnings is the profitability of the massive capex,” shorthand for capital spending on data centers, servers and chips. Reuters

The tech-heavy QQQ fell 1.2% on Friday, while the tech sector’s XLK slid 2.0% and the broad SPY lost 0.4%. Apple ended up 0.3% at $259.48, while Microsoft fell 0.8% to $502.01; Amazon dropped 1.0% to $206.28 and Nvidia slipped 0.7% to $224.67. Meta fell 2.9% to $703.74, Alphabet was little changed at $239.61 and Tesla rose 3.3% to $430.41.

Tesla jumped nearly 5% on Friday after reports that SpaceX was in deal talks with Elon Musk’s other companies and after Bloomberg News reported SpaceX was considering a merger with Tesla. A tie-up would benefit investors “dramatically,” Andrew Rocco, a stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research, said. Reuters

Apple forecast March-quarter revenue growth of 13% to 16% on strong iPhone demand and a rebound in China, after posting holiday-quarter results that beat estimates. CEO Tim Cook told Reuters demand for the latest handsets was “staggering,” but warned analysts that processor supply constraints could limit supply and that a DRAM memory-chip crunch could weigh on margins. Analyst Jacob Bourne at eMarketer said tight supply and inflation-hit shoppers could pressure hardware margins, raising the stakes for services growth. Reuters

But the last two sessions also underlined how fast the mood can turn when investors start muttering about an “AI bubble” and the bill for data centers. A Reuters Trading Day column on Thursday pointed to a 2% slide in tech shares and a 10% drop in Microsoft. Separately, Meta Platforms is due in court next week in a case brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez; jury selection is set to begin on Monday in Santa Fe and Meta denies the allegations. Reuters

The next catalyst comes quickly: results from Alphabet and Amazon are due in the coming week, with investors keyed on guidance for AI infrastructure spending from the big cloud operators often called “hyperscalers.” “For those companies where expectations have become very, very lofty, the onus is going to be on them to deliver,” said Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors. The U.S. jobs report due Feb. 6 is also in focus; “capex spending on building out AI infrastructure will not see any letup,” Sid Vaidya, chief investment strategist at TD Wealth, said. Reuters

Khadija Saeed is a financial markets reporter at TS2.tech, specializing in stocks, technology and emerging industries. She studied economics and finance at the London School of Economics and previously worked in market research before moving into financial journalism. Her coverage focuses on the companies, innovations and economic trends influencing global investors. Follow Khadija Saeed on Google News.

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