Big Tech Stocks News: Forget About Apple Stock. Here’s Why the S&P 500 Is Doing So Well.

It appears that Apple and the rest of Big Tech stocks have propelled the S&P 500 higher this year. However, if artificial intelligence had not emerged, the index would be in negative territory this year.

A few huge corporations have contributed significantly to the S&P 500’s 10% increase this year. For example, Big Tech stocks such as Apple (AAPL) shares are up around 40% this year. Consider the performance of the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP), which weights each stock in the index equally rather than by market capitalization. The fund, which excludes large-cap stocks and displays the average movement of each S&P 500 stock, is up less than 2% for the year.

However, the Cupertino, California-based corporation, whose around $2.7 trillion market value accounts for about 8% of the S&P 500’s total market cap, isn’t the only one bolstering the index. If you look further, you’ll notice that some of the hard work has come from a few tech stocks with high AI ambitions.

According to Société Générale, non-AI equities in the S&P 500 were down around 1% from the beginning of the year to mid-May. The performance of the non-AI category includes Apple, which has not been actively active in the AI sector.

According to Chris Harvey, Wells Fargo’s senior U.S. equities strategist, the index’s gains are owing to the uber-cap AI premium for some of the S&P 500’s greatest weightings.

Among these AI-focused firms is Nvidia (NVDA), whose stock has more than quadrupled this year. It has benefited from its intentions to embed AI capabilities into chips, which the market believes will help it gain market share, raise pricing, or both. Regarding market capitalization, the corporation just surpassed Berkshire Hathaway (BRK. A, BRK. B).

AI is being integrated into Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL) advertising solutions. Alphabet also introduced Bard, a talking chatbot. Meta’s price has more than quadrupled this year, while Alphabet’s stock has risen nearly 40%.

Big Tech stocks of Microsoft (MSFT) are up more than 30%. The corporation is incorporating AI into its cloud solutions and has invested in OpenAI, the ChatGPT developer.

Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft have a combined market cap of nearly $5.3 trillion, which is roughly 15% of the market cap of the S&P 500.

So remember to praise chatbots for their significant contribution to the index’s gains this year.