Changes in US stocks | Apple (AAPL.US) rose nearly 2% to a record high and became Wall Street's first choice to hedge against AI risks

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on Friday, Apple (AAPL.US) rose nearly 2% at the beginning of the session and continued to reach record highs. Over the course of the year, it had a cumulative increase of 32%, with a total market value of 5.23 trillion US dollars. Apple's stock is becoming an important target for Wall Street to hedge against the decline in artificial intelligence technology stocks. The reason is that Apple has not joined the huge spending wave of artificial intelligence infrastructure construction, and abundant cash flow has provided investors with a safe haven of peace of mind.

According to financial reports previously released by Apple, for the fiscal year ending September, the company generated free cash flow of about 136 billion US dollars, an increase of about 38% over the same period last year, far higher than the record of about 111 billion US dollars set in 2022. This cash flow is equivalent to twice the combined revenue of the Big Four of Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon in the last four quarters. At the same time, the capital expenditure of these four companies exceeded 600 billion US dollars in the past four quarters, while Apple spent only about 9 billion US dollars this fiscal year, down nearly 30% from the previous year. This “legacy independence” spending style has been recognized by Wall Street, and more and more investors see Apple stock as a safe haven to hedge against artificial intelligence risks.