U.S. Stock Market Top 20 by Trading Value: Cook Says iPhone Price Hike Unrelated to Tariff
On Friday, the top-traded U.S. stock, AppLovin, a mobile advertising platform and game publisher, rose 4.52% with a trading volume of $44.988 billion. Earlier this month, both AppLovin and Robinhood were added to the S&P 500 Index.
Both AppLovin and Robinhood stocks surged suddenly in the last 10 minutes before the market closed on Friday, with amplified trading volume. Analysts suggest this may be related to investors and institutions adjusting positions during the "Triple Witching Day."
The second-ranked Nvidia rose 0.24%. Nvidia’s announcement this week to invest $5 billion in Intel sparked investor enthusiasm, with Intel’s stock surging as much as 30% on Thursday. However, analysts note that Nvidia’s investment does little to address Intel’s biggest challenge—turning around its struggling chip foundry business.
The third-ranked Apple rose 3.20%, with a trading volume of $39.92 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that the higher launch prices of some new iPhone models are not due to Trump’s tariffs.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “There’s no portion of the price increase tied to tariffs, and that’s absolutely clear.” This is a rare instance of Cook explicitly addressing the relationship between iPhone prices and tariffs.
Earlier this month, Apple released the iPhone 17 series, raising the starting price of the Pro models by $100. However, this year’s entry-level Pro comes with 256GB of storage compared to last year’s 128GB, which may ease some consumer concerns.
Despite Cook’s assertion that the latest price hikes are unrelated to tariffs, the company is still affected by Trump’s trade policies. Cook noted in the most recent earnings call that Apple expects to incur $1.1 billion in tariff-related costs this quarter, up from $800 million last quarter.
The fourth-ranked Tesla rose 2.21%, with a trading volume of $39.099 billion. Sources say Elon Musk’s xAI is raising $10 billion from investors, valuing the AI startup at $200 billion. Musk posted on X on Friday, calling the report “fake news” and stating that “xAI is not currently raising any funds.”
Additionally, Musk said Tesla will soon offer accessible Robotaxi services in Austin, Texas.
The sixth-ranked Robinhood Markets rose 3.20%, with a trading volume of $23.728 billion.
The eighth-ranked Palantir rose 3.06%, with a trading volume of $19.813 billion. Sources recently revealed that Palantir is strengthening ties with the UK, committing to invest £1.5 billion in the country while reaching an agreement with the UK Ministry of Defence to expand the use of its AI software. The source said Palantir is set to finalize a £750 million five-year deal with the Ministry by year-end.
The 12th-ranked Oracle rose 4.06%, with a trading volume of $12.215 billion. Reports this week indicated that Oracle is part of a consortium working to keep TikTok operational in the U.S.
The 15th-ranked Oklo surged 28.83%, with a trading volume of $7.956 billion. Oklo and other U.S. nuclear energy stocks soared on Friday following reports that the Trump administration is aggressively promoting large-scale power projects to meet surging electricity demand from AI and data centers.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the launch of the “Power Acceleration” program, aimed at mobilizing its technical expertise and billions of dollars in funding to address the first significant increase in energy demand in two decades.
The 20th-ranked Micron fell 3.65%, with a trading volume of $6.033 billion. Prior to Friday, the stock had risen for 12 consecutive trading days.
