Investors are flocking to Apple as a tech safe haven as AI infrastructure names come under pressure from midterm election results

Shares of Apple logged their best day in over a year on Wednesday.

Apple shares surged to an all-time high on Wednesday, further cementing the iPhone maker's status as a safe haven for tech investors weary of extensive artificial-intelligence spending.

Shares of Apple (AAPL) rose 5.3% to $349.51, their biggest single-day gain since May 2025, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The rally comes a week after Apple hit its previous all-time high of $348.91 on Oct. 29.

Apple, worth $5.08 trillion as of Wednesday's close, is also growing its lead on Nvidia, worth $4.82 trillion as of the finish.

Luke Rahbari, CEO of Equity Armor Investments, said Apple's surge is driven more by the broader market than any company-specific news. The Nasdaq Composite COMP and other major indexes rose on Wednesday following big wins for Democrats in the midterm elections - a sign that Wall Street views a divided government as an indicator of fewer regulatory surprises and lower Treasury yields. But the election results could provide a tailwind for Apple by fueling local pushback to data centers, Rahbari told MarketWatch over email.

"Apple's earnings don't depend on building data centers. If AI construction slows, it could even ease the memory-chip costs that are squeezing Apple's margins, though Apple expects memory prices to keep rising for now," Rahbari said.

While Apple's megacap tech peers have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers and AI infrastructure, Apple has controlled its spending, striking an AI partnership with Google Gemini and sticking to its core playbook of share buybacks. The disciplined strategy once earned Apple a lot of criticism, but it's coming in handy during times like these.

Meanwhile, AI hardware names dependent on a sustained infrastructure buildout aren't participating in the gains. The iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX fell over 3% Wednesday, and key AI infrastructure players such as CoreWeave (CRWV) dropped 10%. Shares of chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) slid 3%.

Apple shares are now clawing back losses from earlier this week after the company's Monday earnings report failed to impress investors, David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group, told MarketWatch.

"I think it's much more of a consumer play than a tech play," Bahnsen said of Apple. But sitting outside of the hyperscaler category - which includes peers like Amazon.com (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG), Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) - is turning out to be a major advantage. For the past month, those names have been battered by mounting investor anxiety over whether the billions spent on AI infrastructure will pay off.

"People are looking for some megacap flight to safety," Bahnsen said. "Right now, Apple is a good alternative to those names."

"Apple marches to the beat of its own drum," Bahnsen added. However, protection doesn't come cheap. Bahnsen pointed out that shares of Apple trade at a steep premium, with a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 40 times. That refers to what investors are paying for each dollar of the company's earnings.

Indeed, over the past year Apple's valuation has sharply diverged from the broader tech sector. Jefferies trading-desk analyst Jeffrey Favuzza pointed out in a note last week that Apple trades at 35.8 times estimates for its forward earnings, a multiple that's hovering near multi-year highs. On the other hand, the Nasdaq's forward price-to-earnings multiple is 20.3 times, down significantly over the trailing 12 months.

Also: Apple's stock is turning into an AI safe haven

-Christine Ji