Apple stock has become an anti-AI trade. Here’s why
Source
As goes Apple , so goes the tech sector. For years, that was the case, but not anymore. Traders at Goldman Sachs pointed out that the stock's correlation to the Nasdaq-100 index turned negative this year for the first time ever. Indeed, the correlation coefficient between the two sits around -0.1 on a trailing three-month basis. At one point in 2020, the Apple/Nasdaq-100 correlation stood at 0.97. In 2025, it got as high as 0.91. The sharp decoupling comes as the company has moved to adopt artificial intelligence less aggressively than other major tech companies. For example, while Alphabet and Meta Platforms have launched chatbots and personal AI agents, Apple only released iOS 27 — which includes a rebuilt Siri AI — on Sept. 14. Investors in turn have piled into other tech names. Apple has returned 111% to shareholders, while Meta and Alphabet have seen returns of 125% and 164%, respectively. However, Apple's more cautious AI approach may be helping the company of late. Shares are up 4.4% in October, while the Nasdaq-100 has dropped nearly 5% in that time amid concerns that some companies may be borrowing too much money to fund their AI build-out. On top of that, excitement around the company's iPhone Duo launch was palpable. Launch-day pickup inventory of the foldable phone sold out quickly , and some deliveries appear to be delayed as far as late January. More broadly, the decoupling could be beneficial for the Nasdaq-100, with Apple potentially serving as a safety trade amid growing AI volatility.