I think it’s an understatement to say that investors are looking for evidence that Apple (AAPL) will be able to catch up in AI.
This Monday will go a long way to giving investors an answer as the company introduces a revamped Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference.
This week brings a huge earnings test for AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, META and MSFT. I’m going to sell Microsoft out of my 12-18 month Jubak Picks Portfolio on Monday, April 27, ahead of the earnings report. That position is up 319% since I initiated it on June 14., 2018. I am keeping Microsoft in my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio. That position is up 40% since I initiated it on January 18, 2022.
Mark Gurman reports on Bloomerg that Apple (AAPL) has delayed its long-planned upgrade to the Siri virtual assistant again. Apple has run into snags during testing in recent weeks, potentially pushing back the release of several highly anticipated functions. After planning to include the new capabilities in iOS 26.4–an operating system update slated for March–Apple is now working to spread them out over future versions. That would mean postponing some features until at least iOS 26.5, due in May, and iOS 27, which comes out in September. Apple first announced plans for the revamped Siri in June 2024.
A week of Big Tech earnings reports will confirm or reverse what sure looks like a sector rotation away from tech shares and into metal and mining company stocks.
Prices for memory chips are forecast to soar in 2026. but what just as bad/even worse it looks like chip customers are looking at serious supply shortages during the year.
Higher prices and supply shortages could be enough to put earnings at risk at some high multiple cloud and AI companies.
I expect more volatility as forth quarter earnings season picks up speed. Next week, despite the short week created by Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday, 157 companies are scheduled to report earnings with highlights that include Netflix (NFLX) on Tuesday; and General Electric (GE),Procter & Gamble (PG), and Intel (INTC) on Thursday.
In his decision of the remedies in one of Alphabet’s (GOOG) anti-trust cases, Judge Amit Mehta ruled late Tuesday, September 2, that Alphabet must open up competition in online search by sharing more data with competitors, and said that the company could not enter exclusive contracts for search. But Mehta ruled that Alphabet did not have to divest its Chrome the browser, the world’s top browser by market share. Today’s decision followed Mehta’s ruling last year that Alphabet held an illegal monopoly in online search and search advertising. Shares in Alphabet rose after hours, gaining 5.7%.
Going forward, I’m not all that interested in investing in the “old” Magnificent Seven. But I am interested in investing in a new “enhanced” Magnificent Seven that builds on and increases the exposure of these stocks to the market’s AI enthusiasm.
Apple (AAPL) is moving away from a strict reliance on in-house models for Siri and is actively exploring partnerships with third-party AI providers like OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Anthropic (Claude). Apple had focused on
developing proprietary AI technology for its Siri digital assistant.
I’d be surprised if we don’t get a week full of the unexpected from China tariff talks to EU tariff talks to the National Guard in the streets of Los Angeles–and more that I can’t begin to anticipate. So Apple’s (AAPL) World Wide Developers Conference stands out as a bulwark of predictability. The likely result will be disappointing to investors. Apple isn’t likely to announce anything that will reverse current sentiment that sees Apple as woefully behind in the AI race. Rather than boosting the stock–down 18.37% for 2025 as of the close on June 6–I think the event will put new downward pressure on the shares.
In a Truth Social post today, Friday, May 23, President Donald Trump threatened a new 50% tariff on the European Union and a 25% tariff on Apple if the company failed to move iPhone manufacturing to the United states.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday the administration’s decision to exclude smartphones, computers and other popular electronic items from reciprocal tariffs was just temporary. The items will be subject to “semiconductor tariffs, expected to be implemented in “a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview with ABC. “All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored.” President Donald Trump on Friday exempted a host of consumer electronic devices from reciprocal tariffs that include 125% tariffs on Chinese imports and 10% baseline tariffs on other countries. President Trump himself on Sunday posted that phones, computers and other popular electronic items will still be hit by tariffs.
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