Apple Inc. shares edged higher Wednesday, climbing 0.8% to $310.71, as investors shrugged off the company's slower entry into artificial intelligence and instead focused on the strength of its iPhone ecosystem and services business. The stock briefly touched an intraday high of $313.20, bringing Apple's market capitalization to approximately $4.58 trillion.
The move comes as anticipation builds for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), scheduled for June 8-12. Market participants are keenly watching for updates on Siri, developer tools, and Apple Intelligence, the company's suite of AI features. The concept of agentic AI, which refers to software that can autonomously interpret user intentions and handle tasks such as search, shopping, payments, and scheduling, has become a central theme.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan reiterated a Buy rating and raised his price target on Apple to $380 from $330. In a note, Mohan argued that in an agentic AI world, value accrues to the platform that controls user intent, personal context, app access, permissions, identity, authentication, payments, and trust. He estimates that an agentic Siri could generate between $15 billion and $30 billion in additional revenue by fiscal 2030 under a base case, with a bull case scenario of $40 billion to $65 billion.
Apple's latest quarterly results underscored its fundamental strength. On April 30, the company reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $111.2 billion, a 17% year-over-year increase, while diluted earnings per share rose 22% to $2.01. CEO Tim Cook described it as Apple's best March quarter ever, citing robust iPhone demand and record services revenue.
The broader market showed mixed action. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were largely flat as the AI rally lost some steam. Investors remained cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation data due Thursday and monitored geopolitical headlines from the Middle East. Sean Clark, CIO at Clark Capital Management Group, noted that the pause was logical following the recent surge.
Among other megacap tech stocks, Microsoft fell about 0.8%, Nvidia traded 0.9% lower, while Alphabet gained approximately 0.5%. Apple's relative strength stood out amid this divergence.
However, some analysts caution that Wall Street may be pricing in AI services revenue before Apple has clearly demonstrated its strategy. Nicholas Rodelli, legal research director at CFRA, warned that being bullish on Apple requires belief that the company can extend its App Store tax and tolling model to agentic AI, and noted that legal challenges to that approach could pressure earnings.
From a macro perspective, if inflation data continues to come in strong, interest rate expectations could shift away from richly valued tech stocks. Apple currently trades at about 37.6 times earnings, a premium that leaves it vulnerable if WWDC delivers only incremental software updates rather than a clear AI monetization roadmap.
For now, Apple shares are moving on expectations. Over the next two weeks, the focus will shift to whether the company can deliver enough on Siri, developer tools, and services to sustain the rally and avoid a pre-event pullback.
