As AI stocks plunge, Apple is riding high

Apple ( AAPL ) is proving to be a safe port for investors amid a deepening sell-off in AI stocks , driven by fears of hotter-than-anticipated inflation data, neocloud debt loads, and circular investing.

The epicenter of the storm is neocloud company CoreWeave ( CRWV ). The company's stock plummeted 15% on Wednesday and continued to decline Thursday, dropping more than 8% in early trading amid concerns about its ability to cover the debt it's piled up to fund its data center build-out.

Then there's the circular investing conversation.

Questions about circular investing, in which chipmakers like Nvidia ( NVDA ) and AMD ( AMD ) invest in neocloud companies like CoreWeave only for those neoclouds to use the funding to buy the GPUs from their investors, have stalked the market for months. Periodically reaching a fever pitch before dying down amid strong earnings results from AI firms.

The combination of inflation, debt-heavy balance sheets, and circular investing put pressure on AI stocks across the board, with Nvidia stock falling 6% over the last five days. AMD has taken a 13% hit over the same period, while Intel ( INTC ) is off 14%.

The rout hasn't been contained to the US market, either. South Korea's KOSPI index ( ^KS11 ) is down 18%.

In the midst of the AI sell-off, the iPhone maker's market capitalization crossed the $5 trillion mark . It's the second time Apple has reached the milestone. It initially hit $5 trillion in July, before falling back down into the $4 trillion range.

The move stands in stark contrast to its AI-centric peers. It doesn't hurt that, unlike others in the space, Apple hasn't had to shell out billions building new AI data centers, which has helped insulate it from broader market shocks.

Apple isn't immune to the impact of the AI boom, though. The ongoing global shortage of memory and storage chips pushed the company to raise prices across a variety of products.

Still, that hasn't hurt Apple's sales numbers quite yet. It continues to ride high on strong demand for its iPhone lineup, and is preparing for its foldable iPhone Duo to hit the market on Oct. 23.

Starting at $1,999, the Duo could prove too pricey for most consumers, but if Apple can lure even a small number of customers willing to spend the extra cash on its first foldable, the Duo could boost the consumer tech giant's bottom line.

Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley .