Chip Stocks Rebound as Apple’s Margin Outlook Weighs on Shares

Chip stocks helped lift U.S. equities Tuesday even as Apple moved in the opposite direction. At 1:24 p.m. Eastern, AP reported the S&P 500 up 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite up 1.1% and the Dow down 0.2%. More members of the S&P 500 were down than up. The index gain therefore did not describe the experience of most stocks in the benchmark.

Nvidia was up 2.8%, Broadcom 3% and AMD 5.4% in AP’s update. Apple was down 1.7% despite a stronger-than-expected reported quarter. Its December gross-margin outlook of 45% to 46% drew attention to costs, including memory, as well as sales. That contrast is more useful than treating the whole tape as a referendum on whether AI demand exists: the companies sell different products, buy different inputs and have different exposure to the cost of expansion.

Tuesday’s rebound followed a weaker completed session: QQQ had lost 1.36% on Monday, and SMH had fallen 2.71%. Comparing those closing returns with a Tuesday intraday observation is useful for understanding the sequence, but it is not a two-day return calculation. The benchmark and the timestamps have to match before the moves can be compounded.

Apple’s company release put September-quarter sales at $114.5 billion and reported gross margin of 47.9%, helped by tariff refunds. Its later outlook was lower. That is the contrast Tuesday’s market was processing: a solid reported quarter, with less certainty about how much of the next quarter’s sales will reach gross profit.

AMD scheduled its fiscal third-quarter release for after the close. Its move in this report preceded those results. The chart below ends on November 2 so a partial Tuesday quote is not plotted as a closing observation. This is an intraday report, not a final recap.