Key Points
In case you missed it, at market close on July 28, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) passed Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) as the world’s largest company. Apple closed at a $4.95 trillion valuation, while Nvidia fell to $4.76 trillion. These are the two largest companies in the world, with third-place Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) at about $4 trillion.
However, I don’t expect this to last. Apple has an inflated valuation and the market isn’t valuing Nvidia’s stock correctly. A year from now, I’d bet that Nvidia is worth at least $1 trillion more than Apple, and I’ve got the math to back up that claim.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
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Apple’s stock is priced for perfection with relatively slow growth
First, let’s tackle Apple. Apple has been a noteworthy absentee from the AI arms race. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI data centers like its peers, Apple has spent a modest amount and chosen to partner with others that have spent the money to develop AI models. Time will tell if this was the right or wrong strategy, but it does save the company a ton of money in the short term.
Although Apple isn’t spending big, it does have some headwinds approaching, like soaring chip prices thanks to the AI build-out eating up all of the supply. This could cause Apple to raise prices on iPhones or have to deal with falling margins. Either way, it could be a problem for Apple.
However, the market isn’t recognizing any of these potential issues. Instead, it’s treating Apple as a haven from AI spending, which it is. The market has pushed the price of Apple’s stock so high that it has reached unreasonable valuation levels for its growth rate.
AAPL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
The last time Apple was valued at this high a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Apple’s revenue soared thanks to consumers spending money on tech devices. Now, Apple is posting a 17% growth rate, which is solid, but nowhere near where it should be to justify valuing a stock at 41 times trailing earnings.
Apple is an incredibly expensive stock with moderate growth, and that won’t last forever. Meanwhile, Nvidia looks incredibly undervalued.
Nvidia is dirt cheap comparatively
With the market worried about AI overspending, it’s selling off Nvidia’s stock. This has pushed Nvidia down, despite incredible growth rates.
NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Nvidia’s stock is much cheaper than Apple’s and has a much faster growth rate. If these two were valued at the same price-to-earnings level, Nvidia would be the much larger company due to its higher profits. Furthermore, with Wall Street analysts expecting 82% growth for the rest of this year and 43% for 2027, it’s going to continue growing far faster than Apple. By the end of next year, if Nvidia trades at a dirt cheap 20 times earnings, it would price the stock at $257 per share. That’s 30% higher than today’s levels, making it a no-brainer stock to buy.
Apple will have a hard time justifying its current price tag, and if it falls to a more reasonable, but still expensive, 35 times earnings, with next year’s projected earnings per share, the stock will trade at $340 per share — the same price it’s at today.
Apple has a lot of optimistic expectations priced into its stock; Nvidia has none. This reflects the market’s current concerns about AI spending. I think that will fade during the next few months, allowing investors to value Nvidia’s stock for the giant that it is.
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Keithen Drury has positions in Alphabet and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.