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With a year-to-date (YTD) loss of nearly 5%, Apple (AAPL) is underperforming the average S&P 500 Index ($SPX) peer this year. The story is not different from last year, when it gained a mere 8%, which was less than half of what the broad-based index delivered.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL)—which was the best-performing Magnificent 7 stock in 2025—has surpassed Apple to become the world’s second-biggest company after Nvidia (NVDA). If not for Microsoft’s (MSFT) underperformance over the last year, the iPhone maker might have been pushed to the fourth position.
