Apple YTD stock performance is no bueno

This year Apple (AAPL) stock value hasn’t been that great for shareholders which bought at the start of the year, barely scratching the price level on February… and — this is the important part —, not regaining ever since.

THE COLD HARD TRUTH

As of August 1st, Apple stock is down 17% compared to the start of the year (year-to-date). If you bought US$100 worth of Apple stock on January, today you’d have US$83.

Three weeks in, it had already fallen 11% before recovering, before continuing to fall at the end of the month. February painted a slightly better picture, gaining again the lost ground in the previous month, with signs of losing traction again at the end of the month. In March, Apple stock suffered a great drop, falling even below the levels reached at the end of January

THE FALL BELOW US$200

April was brutal for the stock market, stocks started to lose ground in march, and with the tariff statements from the US government the whole stock market saw red for several weeks, and Apple fell below the US$200 mental mark to US$172 dollars per share.

Here is where the stock paints a very different picture. While Microsoft, NVDA and others have been releasing AI features, they have also seen their stock value rise, while Apple’s AI Intelligence has been delayed, removed from launch, or not even talked about, and Wall Street has noticed this.

The stock has been floating since around US$200, traction is basically nowhere to be seen, and it is not even climbing like the other companies in the so called “Magnificent Seven” have done, reaching new highs. But not Apple.

ARE INVESTORS WORRIED ABOUT APPLE’S (LACK OF) AI STRATEGY?

Is it a winter for Apple, or is it something bigger? Services is a huge cash cow, but aside from that, Apple as of lately has been boring — now, don’t get me wrong, this is fine for me, I love their products and the M chip is great —, but as a company, its public performance hasn’t been that great. Apple is not the only one facing regulatory issues (but those have been happening all the time), specially in Europe. If you want to see a company doing some great public stunts just look at Tesla.

And let’s not talk about the UI changes coming up for iOS 26, their latest beta is quite something, change for change’s sake.