Against the current backdrop of well-known tech companies trading below their all-time highs, we have the Teflon tech stock of 2026: Apple (AAPL). Apple's impressive run this year on the stock charts has pushed up its valuation by multiples that are light-years removed from its 10-year average — despite the company waving goodbye to proven CEO Tim Cook and not being included in the AI revolution discussion to a significant degree.
AlphaSpace insight: Apple's stock has gained a solid 20.3% this year compared to a 9.7% advance for the S&P 500 (^GSPC). A good chunk of that gain has occurred in the past three months, to the tune of 19%.
The vibe on Apple, in our view, has been that investors have seen it as more of a safe-haven tech name. While the hyperscalers such as Oracle (ORCL) and Meta (META) load up their balance sheets with debt to fuel AI ambitions, much to the dismay of investors, Apple has stayed Apple in that it's shipping iPhones and various other tech gadgets with little sign of a demand slowdown.
There is optimism that Apple will continue its momentum into year-end, when it releases new iPhone models at higher prices and with better AI functionality.
"Over time, we view that continued iteration of integrated AI feature releases should (a) support longer-term demand for product offerings via installed base growth and (b) support longer-term Services growth via monetization of new first-party and third-party apps as well as greater iCloud storage demand with greater personal data and content created with AI features," Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng wrote in a recent note.
The bullish rotation into Apple is evident in several of its increasingly premium valuation metrics on Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace.
Apple's forward price-to-earnings multiple is 30.67 times, above its 10-year average of 24.8 times. The forward enterprise value-to-EBITDA ratio is 24.5 times, above the 10-year average of 18.3 times. And the forward enterprise value-to-sales ratio is 8.4 times, above the 10-year average of 6.2 times.
The bottom line: There's priced for perfection when it comes to stocks, and then there's the current case of Apple. We would call Apple's stock priced for domination.
The thing is, for a company that's about to undergo a major CEO change at a time of rapid technological innovation, we are unsure whether priced for domination is where Apple should be trading. We think investors could be poised to ask the same question about Apple over the next couple of quarters.
Brian Sozzi* is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor, host of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast, and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.*
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