Seesaw

Apple ($AAPL) overtook Nvidia ($NVDA) as the world’s most valuable company. It’s a swap that’s happened twice in a week, and five times since January 2025. 

Two tech giants trading top spots is partly to do with $AAPL’s new record high. But mostly, it comes down to an adverse investor reaction to Nvidia’s US$250B funding plan for OpenAI to build a 10-gigawatt data centre.

$NVDA dropped 5% on Monday on the back of that, and a broader market selloff that hit semiconductors hard. The culprit? Chinese chipmaker CXMT, which surged 470% on its Shanghai debut to become the largest stock in mainland China.

CXMT makes highly coveted DRAM chips, and its new source of capital could threaten today’s memory market leaders Micron ($MU) and SK Hynix ($SKHY). At least that’s how investors are looking at it: they sent $MU down 6% and $SKHY 9% lower on Monday.

Semis were also impacted by a report that China is making DUV lithography machines. It’s a tool dominated by Dutch supplier ASML ($ASML), which saw a 7% single-day drop.

A bad day for semis is a good day for software – a seesaw effect that’s been playing out for a few months. Workday ($WDAY), Autodesk ($ADSK), ServiceNow ($NOW) and Salesforce ($CRM) all raked in impressive intraday gains.

One stock that knows the rise and fall effect all too well is SpaceX ($SPCX). It has lost ground in 13 of the last 16 sessions and erased US$1.2T in value since its post-IPO high. For context, that’s nearly a Tesla ($TSLA) worth of market cap. 

Investors will be looking to 4 August for SpaceX’s first set of quarterly results, for signs of good news. With 20% of the $SPCX float set to be released just two days later, they will also be watching for a possible post-lockup selloff. 

By now, you’re already digesting earnings from Meta ($META) and Microsoft ($MSFT) and looking ahead to reports from Apple and Amazon ($AMZN). The figure that likely matters most is the capex bill, which has been driving post-earnings sentiment for the last few quarters. 

Strategic market positioning still comes down to one recurring theme: when one side flips, another rises to keep the balance. 

This is not financial advice nor a recommendation to invest in any of the securities listed. The information presented is for general information purposes only and intended to be of a factual nature only. Past performance and forecasts are not a reliable indicator of future performance. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may receive back less than your original investment. The author of this article and other employees of Stakeshop Pty Ltd may hold positions or have financial interests in the company (or companies) discussed above. As always, do your own research and consider seeking financial, legal and taxation advice before investing.

Samy Sriram

Markets Analyst

Samy is a markets analyst at Stake, with seven years of experience in the world of investing, working across roles in private banking, venture capital and financial media. She has a Master’s degree in Finance and Data Analytics from The University of Sydney Business School.